Anti-war news from Bay Area United Against War, an activist-oriented newsletter based in San Francisco, CA.

Tuesday, February 02, 2016

BAUAW NEWSLETTER, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2016

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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter

Table of Contents:

A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS

B. ARTICLES IN FULL

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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS

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Socialist Action presents:

Debating the 2016 Presidential Election

Two debates with several parties represented

Special guest Glen Ford, Executive Editor, Black Agenda Report

For
Bernie Sanders: Tom Gallagher, Chair SF Progressive Democrats of
America; former member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives;
author, "The Primary Route: How the 99 Percent Take On the Military
Industrial Complex"

And Peter Olney (Saturday only),
Retired Organizing Director, ILWU; Labor organizer in Massachusetts and
California for over 40 years. Activist, Labor for Bernie national
network.

Mumia Abu-Jamal is one of
the most important public intellectuals of our time… He offers us new
ways of thinking about law, democracy and power. He allows us to reflect
upon the fact that transformational possibilities often emerge where we
least expect them.”
-Angela Davis

Revolutionary love,
revolutionary memory and revolutionary analysis are at work on every
page written by Mumia Abu-Jamal…His writings are a wake-up call. He is a
voice from our prophetic tradition, speaking to us here, now, livingly,
urgently. Black man, old-school jazz man, freedom fighter,
revolutionary—his presence, his voice, his words are the writing on the
wall.”
– Cornel West

“When you listen to Mumia Abu-Jamal you
hear the echoes of David Walker, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois,
Paul Robeson, and the sisters and brothers who kept the faith with
struggle, who kept the faith with resistance.”
– Manning Marable

Writing
on the Wall presents a selection of more than 100 previously
unpublished essays spanning the entire period of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s
incarceration that crystallize his essential perspectives on community,
politics, protest, history, social change and movement organizing in the
U.S. and internationally. From discussions of Rosa Parks and Trayvon
Martin, to Martin Luther King and Edward Snowden, Abu-Jamal articulates
lucid, humorous, and often prescient insight into the past, present and
future of American politics and society.

This book and this
event could not be more timely, relevant and provocative.Presenting
Mumia’s thoughts and discussing them will be Angela Davis, Johann
Fernández, and Walter Turner.

Angela Davis is an American
political activist, scholar, and author. She emerged as a prominent
progressive activist and a leader in the Communist Party USA. She worked
with the Black Panther Party, and was heavily involved in America’s
Civil Rights Movement, particularly prisoner rights. She founded
Critical Reistance.

Johanna Fernández, the editor of Writing on
the Wall, is a former Fulbright Scholar to Jordan.Currently Assistant
Professor of History at City University of New York, she is the writer
and producer of the film Justice on Trial: The Case for Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Professor Walter Turner, College of Marin Social Sciences
Professor, is also host and producer of the weekly Pacifica Radio
program Africa Today, airing Monday evenings on KPFA Radio 94.1FM.

KPFA benefit

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UNAC has joined with others in support of the following call to action for Feb. 13 - 21.
Oppose Islamophobia, Racism, Deportations and War

Unity and Solidarity Call to Action

In the name of all humanity we say:Yes to Unity, Solidarity, Justice and Peace!NO to hate and fear mongering.

We
will join together in a week of coordinated protests, February 13 – 21
across the country. Now is the time to organize in your community,
school or place of worship.
Stand with us against hate and persecution in all their manifestations.

The
corporate media and some politicians on both sides of the aisle believe
their interests can be advanced by scapegoating the poor and those
oppressed by racism, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant prejudice, mass
deportations, and the exclusion of refugees fleeing endless
U.S.-supported wars abroad.

Hate, fear mongering and war are
increasingly publicly promoted for heinous ends and especially to divide
the victims of the ever-deepening social cutbacks government austerity
policies inflict.

We say no to Islamophobia and all forms of
religious prejudice. We denounce the endless racist police murders of
unarmed members of the nation’s Black and poor communities. We reject
militarily-sealed borders and mass deportations of Latino people.

We strive for the unity and solidarity of all who cherish human and democratic rights.

Click to Endorse this Call:
http://unityandsolidarity.org/endorse-our-campaign/

For more information:
http://unityandsolidarity.org

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Sunday, March 20: National March

to Support Palestine in D.C.!

On
Sunday, March 20, 2016, there will be a major National March on
Washington, D.C., to support Palestine and the Palestinian people. Stand
with Palestine, say NO to the racist reign of terror and the Apartheid
Wall, and say YES to the right of Palestinian refugees to return home.

Buses
are being reserved and organized. Transportation centers are being set
up in cities up and down the East Coast and in the Midwest. We expect
people from every region to descend on Washington, D.C.

The
National March and Rally is timed to coincide with the opening of the
AIPAC Convention in downtown Washington, D.C. We will gather in front of
the White House for a rally at 12 Noon. At 1:00 pm we will march to the
D.C. Convention Center, the site of the AIPAC (American Israeli Public
Affairs Committee) conference.

Al-Awda, The Palestinian Right to
Return Coalition and the ANSWER Coalition are co-sponsoring the National
March on March 20 (#‎SupportPalestineInDC2016). We are expecting
hundreds of organizations and individual leaders to endorse this
activity and join the effort!
What you can do:

1. Become an endorser of this important national action
http://www.answercoalition.org/endorse_the_national_march_to_support_palestine?utm_campaign=palestine_0108&utm_medium=email&utm_source=answercoalition

3. Sign up if you can help bring other people from your area to Washington on March 20
http://www.answercoalition.org/organize_transportation_to_the_national_march_on_washington_to_support_palestine?utm_campaign=palestine_0108&utm_medium=email&utm_source=answercoalition

Palestine
is calling and the world must answer. International solidarity can make
the difference, as it did in bringing an end to apartheid in South
Africa. This must be a united effort for justice. We must stand together
to reject the efforts by the Israeli state and settlers to abuse,
violate and evict the Palestinian people. We say NO to racism and YES to
self-determination.

Please join and help bring thousands of people to Washington, D.C., on Sunday, March 20, 2016.

“This conference that we are picketing ... is an obscene reflection of the reality of this country today, that the most important thing is money and profit, and not human needs!”- Carole Seligman,Speaking at the demonstration

It
was in their fancy tailored suits and with suspicious eyes that Big
Pharma CEO’s and investors got interrupted by protestors and speeches
such as the above, as they came and went from the (too-big-to-fail) JP
Morgan-sponsored conference on “health care” (read: profit care) at the
elite Westin St. Francis hotel on Union Square in San Francisco on
Monday, the 11th of January 2016.

Public Health Not Corporate Wealth!

Called
out by the OASIS Clinic, a not-for-profit in Oakland CA that
specializes in treating patients with Hepatitis-C, the demonstration was
organized in collaboration with the Labor Action Committee To Free
Mumia Abu-Jamal (LAC) and supported by numerous other groups. Some 70
protestors, including OASIS staff, patients and medical professionals,
marched outside the hotel, as the pharmaceutical investors came and
went, to demand proper treatment for the 3 million victims of Hep-C in
the US, including 700,000 prisoners; and to give the CEOs a warning: we
are watching! Profiteering must stop!

As Carole Seligman,
speaking for Prison Radio and Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia
Abu-Jamal explained, “We know how to feed people who are starving, and
we know how to cure people with hepatitis-C and Aids and many other
diseases, but ... this obscene conference (is about) not how to cure
people, not how to distribute these life saving drugs, but how to make
money! This is obscene... we know how to do it! It does not involve
profit-making!”

Gilead Charges 100 Times It’s Cost for the Hep-C Cure

The
big pharma company Gilead Sciences (based in Foster City, CA) was a
chief target of this action. Gilead is the owner and manufacturer (but
not the developer--that was a company that Gilead bought) of the new
drug, Harvoni, which has a 95 percent cure rate for Hep-C in a 12 (or
more) week treatment of one pill per day. This is a vast improvement
over the previous treatments for Hep-C, but... Gilead charges the
outrageous price of $1,000 per pill for the drug, which costs from
$84,000 to nearly $100,000 for a full curative treatment, or more than
twice what the developing company’s suggested price was. Gilead charges
about 100 times the cost of production of the pill!

We
thought we had induced some indigestion, and sure enough, we had! We
were told by one journalist covering the conference that the
demonstration had really shaken them up. Reaction inside the conference
was immediate. Of course, we (protestors & patients) weren’t allowed
in to hear this, but according to the report, “Drug Makers Dismiss
Outrage Over High Prices As ‘Abomination’,” from Stat News (12 January),
because of our demonstration...

“(It) wasn’t surprising that
during a panel discussion here Monday, a Gilead executive was asked how
he lives with himself. Gregg Alton, the [Gilead Sciences] executive
vice president for corporate and medical affairs, joked that he goes
running. Then his tone turned serious as he talked about research,
innovation, and the value of life-saving new drugs. ‘I sleep quite
well,’ he concluded.”

Anger At Drug Companies is Called ... an “Abomination!”

Even
more outrageous was the following from a conference participant:
“Public anger at drug companies is ‘an abomination’”! The speaker was
Ron Cohen, chairman of the big industry group BIO (allegedly “the
world’s largest biotechnology trade association” https://www.bio.org).
All the talk about pharma profiteering is “a perversion of reality,”
according to Cohen.

Protest is an abomination?! Anger over big
pharma profiteering is a perversion of reality?! The truth is millions
of Hep-C sufferers are being denied the curative treatment because they
cannot afford it, or their health plans refuse to cover it due to its
cost; or because they are prisoners--Mumia Abu-Jamal among them--who are
denied it because prison administrations refuse to supply it until they
are deathly sick! This is an abomination! Health care for all is a
right, but not for these greed-driven big corporate executives!

“Eye-Popping” Price Tags:Big Pharma Price Gouging Runs Amok!

Many
drug makers besides Gillead--Pfizer, Ely Lilly, Amgen, Allergan and
Vanda Pharmaceuticals, among many others--have raised prices recently,
according to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. “And a slew
of new drugs have hit the market with eye-popping price tags: cancer
drugs at more than $11,000 a month; cholesterol drugs at more than
$14,000 a year,” according to the Stat News piece. “Then there’s Martin
Shkreli, the pharma executive who bought up a decades-old drug and hiked
the price 5,000 percent, turning himself into a target of nationwide
protests before he was arrested last month on securities fraud charges.”
(http://www.statnews.com/2016/01/12/public-outrage-drug-prices/)

All
this comes in addition to the already over-the-top high drug prices in
the profit-driven US “health” system, which is more costly than in
virtually any other country! As protest coordinator Jack Heyman pointed
out, “Shrekli should have been arrested for profiteering. But in
capitalist America, profiteering is not illegal.” Where is the
perversion, if not in this system, in which profit is god, and the rest
of us--the working masses--are sacrificed on the altar of corporate
greed?!

Mumia’s Radio Commentary, “Medications for the Money, Not
Patients,” 06 January 2016, deals with the outrageous profiteering of
Gilead Sciences in its pricing for the Hepatitis-C cure. The commentary
was to have been played at the rally, but technical difficulties
prevented it. It can be heard on the Prison Radio site, at:
http://www.prisonradio.org/media/audio/mumia/medications-money-not-patients-221-mumia-abu-jamal

Our Demonstration Was Fired Up

Speakers,
besides Carole Seligman, included Dr Dianne Sylvestre, Executive
Director, and Orlando Chavez and Ana Turetsky of the OASIS Clinic; Dick
Becker of the ANSWER Coalition, which provided the sound system; Gerald
Sanders of the Oscar Grant Committee; Marsha Feinland of the Peace and
Freedom Party; and Robin Roth of the Hep-C Task Force of SF. The Single
Payer Now group, along with numerous others also supported this
demonstration with their signs and banners. Jack Heyman, ILWU
longshoreman (retired) and member of both the Labor Action Committee To
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Transport Workers Solidarity Committee, led
the demonstration. A video by Labor Video Project can be viewed at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8i7pCEMScw

Angela Davis’ Comment

Former political prisoner Angela Davis, who was on a speaking tour, sent the following message to the demonstration:

“It
is more important than ever to join the campaign both to free Mumia and
to protest the fact that capitalist profit is ranked as far more
important than human health. Mumia ‘s health situation demands that we
take action immediately. As we know, Mumia has Hepatits C – along with
10,000 other prisoners in Pennsylvania and approximately 500,000 all
over the U.S. They are not receiving treatment because the
pharmaceutical companies producing drugs that are capable of curing Hep C
value profit over human health. "Mumia continues to struggle
against [the] prison industrial complex and the larger capitalist
system. It is up to us to Free Mumia and to eventually abolish the
prison industrial complex Free Mumia Free Them all!”

No Execution By Medical Mistreatment!

Mumia
Abu-Jamal, the world’s best-known political prisoner, like 10,000
prisoners in Pennsylvania (where Mumia is incarcerated for a crime he
did not commit), and at least 700,000 other US prisoners, suffers from a
debilitating Hepatitis-C infection which is not being properly treated
by prison administrations.

The LAC’s signs saying “No Execution
By Medical Mistreatment,” referred to the fact that the Pennsylvania
police/prison complex have been trying to kill Mumia since 1981, when
they found him, and shot him almost fatally at a crime scene with which
he had no involvement! On death row and beyond, the authorities have
been trying to kill Mumia. Hugo “Yogi Bear” Pinell, one of the longest
serving and most brutally treated political prisoners in the US, was set
up and murdered in 2015. This is what they are trying to do to Mumia
now, by medical mistreatment, and if that fails, by other means! Mumia
must be freed from prison!

Support the Prison Radio Legal Fund for Mumia’s Case!

The
LAC linked this struggle with the potentially precedent-setting court
case of Mumia versus the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections
(Abu-Jamal v. Kerestes), which seeks injunctive relief for immediate
treatment with the new (Harvoni) curative medication for Hepatitis-C.
Currently, Mumia is being treated with a bogus heat-lamp therapy for his
painful body-wide skin inflammation, while being denied treatment for
the hepatitis, which is the cause of this and all his symptoms.

Mumia
is the first one to point out that prisoners throughout the US are,
like him, not being properly treated for this debilitating and always
fatal disease. A victory for Mumia in this suit could extend a precedent
throughout the prison system. The lawyers for Mumia in this case are
supported through a fund organized by Prison Radio, the organization
which publishes Mumia’s regular commentaries. We urge you to help! Go to
www.prisonradio.org for more information, and to donate.

Mumia Must Be Free!

Like
so many other prisoners, Mumia needs to receive the life-saving cure
for Hep-C. And, as an innocent political prisoner, framed for a crime he
did not commit, he must be free. But like Leonard Peltier and other
political prisoners who are targeted by the state at all its levels,
from local police through state and national politicians and the Justice
Department itself, Mumia needs a mass mobilization and workers’
struggle to free him from this unjust incarceration. In 1995 masses
mobilized to stop the planned execution of Mumia, and in 1999, Oakland
teachers, and West Coast longshore workers set an example by conducting
labor actions to free Mumia, which included the shutting down of all
West Coast ports! Today, with Mumia’s life at stake, labor and the
community need to build a mass mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!

Public Health, Not Corporate Wealth!No Execution By Medical Mistreatment!Free and Proper treatment for All Hep-C Prisoners Now!Jail Drug Profiteers, Not Mumia!Mumia Is Innocent! Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!

This message is from:
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
www.laboractionmumia.org.
January 2016

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, THE Bureau of Prisons, The Governor of Georgia

We are aware of a review being launched of
criminal cases to determine whether any defendants were wrongly
convicted and or deserve a new trail because of flawed forensic evidence
and or wrongly reported evidence. It was stated in the Washington Post
in April of 2012 that Justice Department Officials had known for years
that flawed forensic work led to convictions of innocent people. We
seek to have included in the review of such cases that of Imam Jamil
Abdullah Al-Amin. We understand that all cases reviewed will include
the Innocence Project. We look forward to your immediate attention to
these overdue wrongs.
ASAP: The Forgotten Imam Project
P.O. Box 373
Four Oaks, NC 27524

"AMERICA'S
PARADISE" HAS BEEN THEIR HELL, 44 YEARS OF POLITICAL IMPRISONMENT, THE
PAST 15 OF THEM WITHOUT EVEN THE PRETENSE OF THEM SERVING SENTENCES

While the U.S. today
declares that the natural inhabitants of the Virgin Islands have "no
fundamental rights," it claims that it fairly tried these men in 1972,
then held them in the U.S. federal prison system for 29 years. In 2000,
even though the U.S. retired their "sentences," it directed the
colonial government to hold them nonetheless, indefinitely, and
illegally, and this is exactly what it has done for 15-years.

FOR RAISING THE FACT THEY HAVE BEEN
ILLEGALLY HELD FOR THE PAST 15-YEARS BY THE u.s. COLONIAL GOVERNMENT
THEY WERE LOCKED DOWN AS "SECURITY RISKS." THIS IS SPITE OF YEARS OF
THEM GOING OUTSIDE THE PRISON TO COMMUNITY EVENTS WITHOUT ESCORT AS
INVITED QUEST SPEAKERS AND HAD IN FACT, HAD JUST RETURNED FROM ONE. tHIS
ACTION TOOK PLACE aT THE VERY TOME THAT THE COURT WAS TO HAVE ACTED ON
THEIR HABEAS PETITIONS. oN THE DAY THEY SHOULD HAVE FREED, THEY ARE PUT
IN THE WHOLE AND REMAIN THERE TO THIS DAY. tO DATE, IN UTTER VIOLATION
OF THE LAW, THE u.s. dISTRICT COURT HAS WITHHELD PROCESS, IN VIOLATION
OF THEIR HUMAN RIGHTS AS WELL.

WHO ARE THE VIRGIN ISLAND 3

THE VIRGIN ISLAND 3, FORMERLY KNOWN AS THE “VIRGIN ISLAND 5,” HAVE BEEN
IMPRISONED FOR 43-YEARS FOR THE KILLING OF SEVEN WHITES AND A MULATTO AT
THE FOUNTAIN VALLEY GOLF COURSE IN ST. CROIX IN 1972. EVEN THOUGH THE
INCIDENT WAS DESCRIBED AS A “ROBBERY GONE BAD,” THE U.S. GOVERNMENT
TREATED IT AS THE TIP OF SOME SORT OF “MAU MAU” UPRISING TO FORCE ALL
WHITE PEOPLE OUT OF THE ISLES. IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE INCIDENT THE
U.S. SENT IN AN ARMY OF RACIST WHITE FBI AGENTS, ALONG WITH 300 MARINES,
AND PLACED ALL OF THE ISLES IT CLAIMS TO “OWN” UNDER A STATE OF RACIST
MARTIAL LAW. THE ENTIRE BLACK POPULATION WAS SUSPECT, PARTICULARLY
YOUNG BLACK MEN, WITH OVER 100 OF THEM BEING ROUNDED UP IN HOUSE TO
HOUSE SEARCHES. MOST OF THE YOUNG MEN WERE SUBJECTED TO VARIOUS FORMS OF
TORTURE THAT INCLUDED BEATINGS, WATER-BOARDING, ELECTRIC SHOCK, AND
BEING HUNG FROM TREES AND BUILDINGS BY THEIR FEET. (for a more detailed
account click this link "Maracatu")

WITHIN A WEEK AFTER THE INCIDENT THE FBI SETTLED ON FIVE YOUNG MEN AS
THE CULPRITS WITH SCANT EVIDENCE AND "CONFESSIONS" OBTAINED THROUGH
TORTURE. THOSE FIVE YOUNG BLACK MEN WHERE ISHMAEL LABEET, RAPHAEL
JOSEPH, WARREN BALLENTINE, BEAUMONT GEREU, AND MERAL SMITH. THEY WERE
QUICKLY TRIED TOGETHER IN THE U.S. DISTRICT COURT BY A JUDGE WHO USED TO
SERVE AS THE ATTORNEY FOR THE ROCKEFELLER FAMILY, WHICH OWNED THE GOLF
COURSE. THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE TO CONVICT A ONE, WHICH WAS WHY THE
STRATEGY WAS TO TRIE THEM TOGETHER, IN ORDER TO FUDGE THE FACTS. THE GUN
USED TO KILL THE PEOPLE WAS AN AUTOMATIC RIFLE REGISTERED TO THE VI
POLICE DEPARTMENT, BUT NO POLICE OFFICER WAS EVER MADE SUSPECT. THE
ASSAILANTS WERE MASKED THE ENTIRE TIME AND THE INCIDENT OCCURRED IN A
MATTER OF MINUTES WITH THE ASSAILANTS ALLEGEDLY DISAPPEARING BACK INTO
THE SURROUNDING RAIN FORREST FROM WHICH THEY CAME. HOWEVER, SOME
WITNESSES REPORTED THAT THE MEN DROVE OFF IN A CAR AND THAT THE INCIDENT
WAS SOME SORT OF "HIT."

AFTER A HASTY TRIAL, WHEN THE JURY INFORMED THE JUDGE THAT THEY COULD
NOT CONVICT, HE ORDERED THEM HELD FOR NINE DAYS UNTIL THEY CAME BACK
WITH GUILTY VERDICTS AGAINST ALL FIVE. WITHIN THE HOUR AFTER GETTING THE
GUILTY VERDICTS THE JUDGE HAD ALL FIVE BROUGHT BEFORE HIM AND SENTENCED
EACH TO EIGHT CONSECUTIVE LIFE SENTENCES, THEN HAD THEM MARCHED FROM
THE COURTHOUSE DOWN TO THE HARBOR IN CHRISTENSTED. IN THE HARBOR WERE A
NUMBER OF SEA PLANES THAT THEN FLEW THE FIVE OFF TO FEDERAL PRISONS IN
THE UNITED STATES. THE SPEEDY ARREST, TRIAL, CONVICTION, AND
IMPRISONMENT WERE INTENDED TO SEND A MESSAGE TO THE NATURAL INHABITANTS
AGAINST EVEN CONTEMPLATING OPPOSING U.S. RULE, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME TO
ENSURE WHITES THAT ANY BLACK UPRISING WOULD BE DEALT WITH QUICKLY,
HARSHLY, AND EFFECTIVELY. THE
QUICK ARREST, PROSECUTION, TRIAL, CONVICTIONS, HARSH SENTENCES, AND
QUICK EXECUTION AMOUNTED TO A LYNCHING IN ORDER TO TERRORIZE THE NATURAL
INHABITANTS. AND THIS IS WHY THESE MEN REMAIN IMPRISONED TO THIS DAY,
IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN THAT TERROR MESSAGE.

iN 1983, WHILE BEING TRANSPORTED BACK TO PRISON IN THE STATES AFTERAPPEARING
BACK IN ST. CROIX FOR A COURT HEARING, , ISHMAEL LABEET HIJACKED THE
PLANE AND ESCAPED TO CUBA WHERE HE WAS GIVEN POLITICAL ASYLUM AND LIVES
TODAY. IN 1992, RAPHAEL JOSEPH ALONE WAS PARDONED BY THE GOVERNOR FOR
GOOD BEHAVIOR, EVEN THOUGH HIS BEHAVIOR WAS NOT ANY BETTER THAN THE
OTHER THREE.

IN 2000-01, ALTHOUGH THE U.S. FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS RETIRED THE
SENTENCES OF THE REMAINING THREE AND DISCHARGED THEM FROM ITS CUSTODY,
IT DID NOT RELEASE THEM FROM DETENTION. INSTEAD OF BEING RELEASED AS
REQUIRED BY LAW, THE THREE WERE ILLEGALLY "TRANSFERRED" TO THE CUSTODY
OF THE COLONIAL GOVERNMENT, EVEN THOUGH THEY NO LONGER HAD SENTENCES.

FOR THE PAST 15-YEARS THESE MEN HAVE BEEN DETAINED WITHOUT EVEN THE
PRETENSE OF A PRISON SENTENCE, HELD BY A GOVERNMENT IMPOSED AND
CONTROLLED BY A FOREIGN POWER - THE UNITED STATES. THIS GOES TO PROVE
THAT FROM THE VERY OUTSET THEIR IMPRISONMENT WAS POLITICAL AND ILLEGAL,
THESE MEN WERE MADE "TERROR SUSPECTS" 30-YEARS BEFORE GOERGE BUSH AND
DICK CHENEY MADE THE TERM UP. jUST LIKE MANY OF THE SO-CALLED "TERROR
SUSPECTS" AT GUANTANAMO BAY, THIS MEN WERE SWEPT UP IN A WARLIKE U.S.
INVASION OF THEIR COUNTRY. AND JUST LIKE WAS DONE TO THE SO-CALLED
"TERROR SUSPECTS" AT GUANTANAMO BAY, THESE MEN WERE ALSO SUBJECTED TO
"ENHANCED INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES," OR TORTURE. AND JUST LIKE WITH THE
SO-CALLED "TERROR SUSPECTS" AT GUANTANAMO BAY THEIR CONTINUED DETENTION
IS OUTSIDE OF ALL KNOWN LAW AND MORALITY.

MALIK,
HANEEF, AND ABDUL CAN BE REACHED BY MAIL AT THE GOLDEN GROVE PRISON, IF
IN FACT THEY ARE STILL THERE AND NOT BEEN SPIRITED OFF TO SOME OTHER
"BLACK SITE:"

RURAL ROUTE 1, BOX 9955, KNGSHILL VI OO8500

HOWEVER, PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT THERE IS NO INTENT TO JUST LET THEM
TO CONTINUE TO HOLD THEM, WE ARE NOT GOING TO WAIT FOR JUSTICE TO COME
FROM A PLACE WERE IT DOES NOT EXIST. WE HAVE WORK TO DO IN THE ISLES
RIGHT NOW. YOU CAN HELP, PLEASE FOLLOW THE PEOPLE'S ALERT BELOW. THANK
YOU

PEOPLES' ALERT:

ON DECEMBER 31, 2015, THE VIRGIN ISLAND 3 WERE LOCKED DOWN FOR
PETITIONING THE U.S. DISTRICT COURT OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS, THE SAME
COURT IN WHICH THEY WERE "TRIED" 44-YEARS AGO, TO END 15-YEARS OF BEING
ILLEGALLY DETAINED BY THE COLONIAL GOVERNMENT OF THE "U.S. VIRGIN
ISLANDS." INSTEAD OF DUE PROCESS, INSTEAD OF JUSTICE, THEY HAVE BEEN
SUBJECTED TO MORE OPPRESSION AND REPRESSION

Kenneth Mapp is the governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, a former
police officer in the states, is directly responsible for the illegal
detention of the Virgin Islands 3. All he does not need a court to
order their release, all he needs to do is to decide that his
government will no long violate the law and the Human Rights of its own
people.

Read more at: http://virginislands3.yolasite.com/

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Afrikan
Black Coalition just started a petition to the University of California
Regents, UC President Napolitano, and UC Chief Investment Officer
Bachher stating:

Last year, we
pushed the University of California to divest $25 million in private
prison shares. We dedicate this victory to the millions of our people
languishing in America's mass incarceration regime. But the University
of California still has not divested the $425 million in shares from
Wells Fargo, one of the largest private prison funders.

Wells
Fargo maintains a $900 million credit line to private prisons. If we all
truly believe that #BlackLivesMatter from the hood to the academy, we
must stand with our family and friends who are currently incarcerated or
are at a higher risk of incarceration because of their very Blackness.

Tell the UC to divest effective immediately, all of the $425 million it has currently invested in Wells Fargo!

We
just started a petition titled "University California (UC) Divestment."
Below is the appeal that we will deliver to the University of
California next month:

We, the undersigned community members and
justice seekers, are excited by the Afrikan Black Coalition's recent
victory in getting the University of California to divest $25 million
from the private prison corporations Corrections Corporations of America
(CCA), The Geo Group, and G4S. The victory was historic because private
prisons have exacerbated America's mass incarceration regime, are
implicated in gross human rights violations, and should be outlawed.

However,
we share the Afrikan Black Coalition's outrage and frustration
resulting from the UC system's startling $425 million investment in
Wells Fargo, one of the largest financiers of private prisons. According
a report from Enlace, Wells Fargo acts as a syndication agent and
issuing lender on CCA's $900 million line of credit. As of their latest
filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Wells Fargo owned
998,350 shares in CCA and 462,342 shares in GEO Group, nearly 1.5
million shares total. It bears noting that Wells Fargo is a bank that
practiced discriminatory lending and maneuvered people of color
(primarily Black and Latino) into subprime mortgages that led to the
financial meltdown of 2007-2008; and in response to accusations of
racial discrimination in its lending practices, Wells Fargo settled for
$175 million in 2012 with pending litigations from several U.S cities
about discriminatory practices.

I share the Afrikan Black
Coalition's outrage and frustration resulting from the UC system's
startling $425 million investment in Wells Fargo, one of the largest
financiers of private prisons.

It is for these reasons that we
stand in solidarity with the Afrikan Black Coalition in its call for
justice for those who are systematically dehumanized by an unforgiving
and unfair judicial system that continues to criminalize Black and brown
bodies. We acknowledge these cases illustrate the evolution of
America's legal institution to uphold race, gender, and class
hierarchies. By investing in Wells Fargo Bank, the University of
California is actively supporting a legacy of historical emphasis on
profit margins at the expense of human beings, and the continued mass
criminalization of Black existence. It is an ethical embarrassment and a
clear disregard for Black and immigrant lives for the UC to invest
hundreds of millions of dollars in Wells Fargo as a financier of private
prisons. In the age of Black Lives Matter and a reinvigorated Black
Freedom Struggle, the UC should NOT be bankrolling the inhuman mass
incarceration regime that has gripped America.

I am outraged that
Wells Fargo spends almost $1 billion funding modern-day slave
plantations. The University of California should not be in business with
such an immoral bank!
In Solidarity and Struggle,

SUPPORTERS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL,AND FREE QUALITY HEALTH CARE FOR ALL:The
Oasis Clinic in Oakland, CA, which treats patients with Hepatitis-C
(HCV), demands an end to the outrageous
price-gouging of Big Pharma corporations, like Gilead Sciences, which
hike-up the cost for essential, life-saving medications such as the cure
for the deadly Hepatitis-C virus, in order to reap huge profits. The
Oasis Clinic’s demand is:

URGENT UPDATE: PA JUDGE IMMEDIATELY DISMISSED MAJOR TILLERY'S LAWSUIT AS "FRIVOLOUS." MAJOR WILL FIGHT THIS IN FEDERAL COURT!

MAJOR TILLERY SUES PA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS

First Amendment Lawsuit Against Retaliation For Fighting for Medical Treatment For Mumia Abu-Jamal and All Prisoners

Major Tillery, his daughter, Kamillah and his two granddaughters:

Major
Tillery filed a civil rights lawsuit pro se against John Wetzel,
Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC), SCI
Mahanoy Superintendent John Kerestes, SCI Frackville Superintendent
Brenda Tritt and 17 other prison officials. The DOC punished and
retaliated against Tillery for acts of solidarity with Mumia Abu-Jamal
and other prisoners fighting for the fundamental human right of medical
care. The lawsuit was filed in the Schuylkill County Court of Common
Please on January 5, 2015:This
is a civil rights action brought by Major George Tillery, a 65 year-old
African-American man to stop and remedy retaliation against him for his
exercise of his First Amendment Rights. Tillery was subjected to
numerous retaliatory acts by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections
and its employees, including medical neglect and medical mistreatment,
unjustified cell searches, transfer to another cell block, loss of his
prison job and precipitous transfer from SCI Mahanoy to SCI Frackville
and then being set-up with a false misconduct and given over four months
in disciplinary custody (solitary confinement).

This
retaliation was intended to punish and stop Tillery from filing
grievances challenging medical neglect and mistreatment of him and other
prisoners, including the well-known journalist and former death row
prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. This retaliation was punishment for Tillery
continuing to publicly advocate for Mumia Abu-Jamal, and to publicly
expose the DOC’s neglect and mistreatment of prisoner’s medical problems
as well as the DOC’s retaliation against Tillery; and continuing to
file grievances objecting to these retaliatory actions by prison
officials.

Throughout his over thirty years in prison serving a
sentence of life without parole, Tillery has challenged his conviction
and sentence, and unconstitutional restrictions on access to courts,
prison conditions including security classification and placement
procedures, medical treatment, and housing conditions on behalf of
himself and other prisoners. He was held in solitary confinement in
super-max institutions in the federal and Pennsylvania prison systems
for over twenty of those years.

Tillery was the lead plaintiff
in Tillery v. Owens, a class action lawsuit filed July 23, 1987,
challenging the constitutionality of the conditions of confinement at
the State Correctional Institution at Pittsburgh ("SCIP") located in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It started as a pro se legal action by
Tillery. It resulted in an historic legal order requiring remediation of
unconstitutional prison conditions including deficient security, fire
protection, access to the courts, over-crowded housing, medical care,
mental health care and dental services. The DOC was required to make
prison renovations costing more than a million dollars. See Tillery v.
Owens, 719 F.Supp. 1256 (W.D.Pa.1989).

Major Tillery demands
that the DOC stop its retaliation, remove the false misconduct from his
record, provide medical treatment and transfer him out of SCI Frackville
to a different prison in eastern Pennsylvania so he remains near his
family.

This lawsuit is just part of Major Tillery’s fight for
medical care and to protect himself and other prisoners who are standing
up for justice. He has liver disease and chronic Hepatitis C that the
DOC has known about for over a decade. Tillery is filing grievances
against the prison and its medical staff to get the new antiviral
medicine. This is part of the larger struggle to obtain Hep C treatment
for the 10,000 prisoners in Pennsylvania and the estimated 700,000
prisoners nationally who have Hepatitis-C and could be cured.

Major Tillery’s daughter, Kamilah Iddeen appeals for our support:

It
is so important that my Dad filed this lawsuit– it shows what really
goes on inside the prison. Prison officials act as if my father is their
property, that his family doesn’t exist, that he isn’t a man with
people who love him. They lied to us every time we called and said he
needed treatment. They lied and said he hadn’t told them, that he hadn’t
filed grievances. The DOC plays mind games and punishes prisoners who
stand up for themselves and for others. But my Dad won’t be broken.

The
DOC needs to learn they can’t do this to a prisoner and his family.
Justice has to be done. Justice has to be served. Please help.

Call prison officials and demand:--Demand decent medical care for Major Tillery!--Stop
the Retaliation Against Major Tillery. He should be exonerated for the
false charges of drug possession and this misconduct removed from his
record.--Transfer Major Tillery from SCI Frackville back to SCI
Mahanoy or to another facility in eastern Pennsylvania to remain near
his family.Dept. Of Corrections SecretaryJohn Wetzel (717) 728-4109 Superintendent SCI FrackvilleBrenda Tritt (570) 874-4516

Defend Chelsea Manning

Here are two important ways you can support Chelsea:

Attorneys Nancy Hollander and
Vincent Ward are well into the process of preparing for Chelsea's first legal appeal next
year. The appeals process has the potential to take decades off Chelsea's 35 year prison sentence.Donate Today!

Super secret insider info: Not only are Chelsea Manning shirts and stuff already 50% off in our online store, if you use discount code "chelsea"
during check out, you'll get an additional 50% off. That is insane, so
please don't tell anyone else, as we can't afford for this news to get
out too broadly. Here's the link to the store, just for you Bonnie.

Chelsea honored in Advocate's 40 under 40!

"In blogs, tweets, and handwritten letters from prison, the former Army
intelligence specialist is still trying to change the world."

"I often hear and read that many people all over the world consider me a
‘whistleblower’ or a ‘heroine.’ This experience can be a little
intimidating at times," she tells The Advocate. "That’s an idea
that would be a lot to live up to! I don’t feel like I can live up to
the expectations of being a ‘heroine.’ I don’t have any special powers
or abilities like a comic book super hero. I actually feel a lot more
vulnerable than that. In fact, I am very vulnerable. I just try to be
myself, and that’s all I aspire to be.” Read more...

Help us continue to cover 100% of Chelsea's legal fees!

When Drone Whistleblowers are Under Attack,

What Do We Do?

STAND UP, FIGHT BACK!

We honor Stephan, Michael, Brandon and Cian!

These
four former ex-drone pilots have courageously spoken out publicly
against the U.S. drone assassination program. They have not been
charged with any crime, yet the U.S. government is retaliating against
these truth-tellers by freezing all of their bank and credit card
accounts. WE MUST BACK THEM UP!
Listen to them here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43z6EMy8T28

PLEASE HELP THEM:

1. Sign up on this support network:www.facebook.com/events/1502272456740302/

**************************************************************
Statement of Support for Drone Whistleblowers
(Code Pink Women for Peace: East Bay, Golden Gate, and S.F. Chapters 11.28.15)

Code
Pink Women for Peace support the very courageous actions of four former
US drone operators, Michael Haas, Brandon Bryant, Cian Westmoreland,
and Stephan Lewis, who have come under increasing attack for disclosing
information about “widespread corruption and institutionalized
indifference to civilian casualties that characterize the drone
program.” As truth tellers, they stated in a public letter to President
Obama that the killing of innocent civilians has been one of the most
“devastating driving forces for terrorism and destabilization around the
world.”* These public disclosures come only after repeated attempts to
work privately within official channels failed.

Despite
the fact that none of the four has been charged with criminal activity,
all had their bank accounts and credit cards frozen. This retaliatory
response by our government is consistent with the extrajudicial nature
of US drone strikes.

We must support these former drone
operators who have taken great risks to stop the drone killing. Write
or call your US Senators, your US Representatives, President Barack
Obama, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, and CIA Director John Brennan
demanding that Michael Haas, Brandon Bryant, Cian Westmoreland, and
Stephan Lewis be applauded, not punished, for revealing the criminal and
extrajudicial nature of drone strikes that has led to so many civilian
deaths.

For more information on the 4 Drone Whistleblowers:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1502272456740302/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43z6EMy8T28
(Must see Democracy Now interview with the 4 drone operators)

Save Ashraf Fayadh

Palestinian poet sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia.

Ashraf
Fayadh, Palestinian refugee poet and artist living in Saudi Arabia, has
been sentenced to death by a Saudi court, on charges of apostasy or
abandoning his faith in Islam. The charges appear to be based on his
poetry and writing and also maybe a form of retaliation for posting an
online video showing Saudi religious police lashing a man in public.

Fayadh
is a Palestinian refugee who was born in Saudi Arabia and has become a
leading member of the young Saudi art scene. He was arrested in January
2014, his identity documents confiscated, and held for a lengthy period
without charge. He was then sentenced to four years in prison and 800
lashes; after he appealed; he was re-tried last month and sentenced to
death. He did not have legal representation.

Fayadh is being
sentenced to death after having been jailed for more than 22 months in
the Saudi city of Abha without clear legal charges beyond “insulting the
Godly self” and having “ideas that do not suit the Saudi society.”
These charges are based on the complaint of a reader’s interpretation of
Fayadh's 2008 poetry collection titled, Instructions Within.

“According
to Fayadh’s friends, when the police failed to prove that his poetry
was atheist propaganda, they began berating him for smoking and having
long hair,” reported the Guardian. Fayadh said his poetry book,
Instructions Within, is “just about me being [a] Palestinian
refugee…about cultural and philosophical issues. But the religious
extremists explained it as destructive ideas against God.”

This
is not the first time that Saudi authorities have arrested Ashraf
Fayadh. The poet was detained before after a Saudi citizen filed a
complaint with the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the
Prevention of Vice accusing Fayadh of having “misguided and misguiding
thoughts.” Fayadh was bailed out of jail at the time, only to get
arrested again. According to sources close to Fayadh, the poet has been
denied both visitation and legal representation rights.

Amnesty
international stated, “We condemn these acts of intimidation targeting
Ashraf Fayadh as part of a wider campaign inciting hate against writers
and using Islam to justify oppression and to crush free speech. We
express our solidarity with Fayadh, hoping to increase support for the
poet as well as pressure to release him. Our efforts should come
together to ensure the proliferation of free speech and personal
freedoms. We specifically call on Saudi intellectuals to express
solidarity with Fayadh against Takfiris’ intimidation practices meant to
silence poets, writers, and artists like him. Let the flag of
creativity fly free and remain innovative. Remaining silent towards
Fayadh’s detention is an insult to knowledge, literature, culture, and
thought as well as to freedom and human rights.”

Samidoun
Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network joins the call for the immediate
freedom of Ashraf Fayadh. His imprisonment, persecution and death
sentence by the Saudi regime reflects the deeply reactionary and
far-right role played by the Saudi regime in the region—alongside its
close imperial partners in the United States, Canada and Europe—that
threatens Palestinian and Arab culture, life, and movements and works to
block and suppress any struggle for liberation.

2.
Protest at the Saudi Embassy in your area for freedom for Ashraf
Fayadh. Print signs and materials, and gather outside the Saudi embassy
with Palestine rights activists, artists and others to demand his
freedom. See the list of Saudi embassies here: http://embassy.goabroad.com/embassies-of/saudi-arabia

3.
Contact your government officials. The Saudi regime is a close partner
of the United States, Canadian and various European governments. Demand
that your government pressure the Saudi regime to release Fayadh. In
Canada, Call the office of the Foreign Minister, Stéphane Dion, at
613-996-5789 and demand Canada pressure Saudi Arabia to release Fayadh,
or email: stephane.dion@parl.gc.ca.
In the U.S., call the White House (202-456-1111) and the U.S. State
Department (202-647-9572); demand the U.S. pressure Saudi Arabia to
release Fayadh. In the EU, contact your Member of the European
Parliament—you can find your MEP here:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html

Please
also write letters, Facebook posts, emails or send Facebook messages to
your local politicians, newspapers and friends to publicize this dire
case and spread the information about the situation of Ashraf Fayadh.

Urge
Gov. Jerry Brown to commute Kevin Cooper's death sentence. Cooper has
always maintained his innocence of the 1983 quadruple murder of which
he was convicted. In 2009, five federal judges signed a dissenting
opinion warning that the State of California "may be about to execute
an innocent man." Having exhausted his appeals in the US courts, Kevin
Cooper's lawyers have turned to the Inter American Commission on Human
Rights to seek remedy for what they maintain is his wrongful
conviction, and the inadequate trial representation, prosecutorial
misconduct and racial discrimination which have marked the case.
Amnesty International opposes all executions, unconditionally.

"The
State of California may be about to execute an innocent man." - Judge
William A. Fletcher, 2009 dissenting opinion on Kevin Cooper's case

Kevin Cooper has been on death row in California for more than thirty years.

In
1985, Cooper was convicted of the murder of a family and their house
guest in Chino Hills. Sentenced to death, Cooper's trial took place in
an atmosphere of racial hatred — for example, an effigy of a monkey in a
noose with a sign reading "Hang the N*****!" was hung outside the
venue of his preliminary hearing.

Take action to see that Kevin Cooper's death sentence is commuted immediately.

Cooper has consistently maintained his innocence.

Following
his trial, five federal judges said: "There is no way to say this
politely. The district court failed to provide Cooper a fair hearing."

Since 2004, a dozen federal appellate judges have indicated their doubts about his guilt.

Tell California authorities: The death penalty carries the risk of irrevocable error. Kevin Cooper's sentence must be commuted.

In
2009, Cooper came just eight hours shy of being executed for a crime
that he may not have committed. Stand with me today in reminding the
state of California that the death penalty is irreversible — Kevin
Cooper's sentence must be commuted immediately.

Kevin
Cooper's case will be the subject of a new episode of CNN's "Death Row
Stories" airing on Sunday, July 26 at 7 p.m. PDT. The program will be
repeated at 10 p.m. PDT. The episode, created by executive producers
Robert Redford and Alex Gibney, will explore how Kevin Cooper was framed
by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department and District
Attorney.Viewers on the east coast can see the program at 10 p.m. EDT
and it will be rebroadcast at 1 a.m. EDT on July 27. Viewers in the
Central Time zone can see it at 9 p.m. and midnight CDT. Viewers in the
Mountain Time zone can see it at 8 p.m. and ll p.m MDT. It will be
aired on CNN again during the following week and will also be able to
be viewed on CNN's "Death Row Stories" website.

Kevin Cooper: An Innocent Victim of Racist Frame-Up - from the Fact Sheet at: www.freekevincooper.org
Kevin
Cooper is an African-American man who was wrongly convicted and
sentenced to death in 1985 for the gruesome murders of a white family in
Chino Hills, California: Doug and Peggy Ryen and their daughter
Jessica and their house- guest Christopher Hughes. The Ryens' 8 year
old son Josh, also attacked, was left for dead but survived.

Convicted
in an atmosphere of racial hatred in San Bernardino County CA, Kevin
Cooper remains under a threat of imminent execution in San Quentin. He
has never received a fair hearing on his claim of innocence. In a
dissenting opinion in 2009, five federal judges of the Ninth Circuit
Court of Appeals signed a 82 page dissenting opinion that begins: "The
State of California may be about to execute an innocent man." 565 F.3d
581.

There is significant evidence that exonerates Mr. Cooper and points toward other suspects:


The coroner who investigated the Ryen murders concluded that the
murders took four minutes at most and that the murder weapons were a
hatchet, a long knife, an ice pick and perhaps a second knife. How could
a single person, in four or fewer minutes, wield three or four
weapons, and inflict over 140 wounds on five people, two of whom were
adults (including a 200 pound ex-marine) who had loaded weapons near
their bedsides?

 The sole surviving victim of the
murders, Josh Ryen, told police and hospital staff within hours of the
murders that the culprits were "three white men." Josh Ryen repeated
this statement in the days following the crimes. When he twice saw Mr.
Cooper's picture on TV as the suspected attacker, Josh Ryen said
"that's not the man who did it."

 Josh Ryen's
description of the killers was corroborated by two witnesses who were
driving near the Ryens' home the night of the murders. They reported
seeing three white men in a station wagon matching the description of
the Ryens' car speeding away from the direction of the Ryens' home.


These descriptions were corroborated by testimony of several employees
and patrons of a bar close to the Ryens' home, who saw three white men
enter the bar around midnight the night of the murders, two of whom
were covered in blood, and one of whom was wearing coveralls.


The identity of the real killers was further corroborated by a woman
who, shortly after the murders were discovered, alerted the sheriff's
department that her boyfriend, a convicted murderer, left
blood-spattered coveralls at her home the night of the murders. She also
reported that her boyfriend had been wearing a tan t-shirt matching a
tan t-shirt with Doug Ryen's blood on it recovered near the bar. She
also reported that her boyfriend owned a hatchet matching the one
recovered near the scene of the crime, which she noted was missing in
the days following the murders; it never reappeared; further, her sister
saw that boyfriend and two other white men in a vehicle that could
have been the Ryens' car on the night of the murders.

Lacking
a motive to ascribe to Mr. Cooper for the crimes, the prosecution
claimed that Mr. Cooper, who had earlier walked away from custody at a
minimum security prison, stole the Ryens' car to escape to Mexico. But
the Ryens had left the keys in both their cars (which were parked in the
driveway), so there was no need to kill them to steal their car. The
prosecution also claimed that Mr. Cooper needed money, but money and
credit cards were found untouched and in plain sight at the murder
scene.

The jury in 1985 deliberated for seven days
before finding Mr. Cooper guilty. One juror later said that if there had
been one less piece of evidence, the jury would not have voted to
convict.

The evidence the prosecution presented at
trial tying Mr. Cooper to the crime scene has all been
discredited… (Continue reading this document at:
http://www.savekevincooper.org/_new_freekevincooperdotorg/TEST/Scripts/DataLibraries/upload/KC_FactSheet_2014.pdf)

This message from the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. July 2015

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For Immediate Release – Thursday, October 29, 2015

Solitary Prisoners' Lawyers Slam CDCR for Sleep Deprivation

Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition

SAN
FRANCISCO – Yesterday, lawyers for prisoners in the class action case
Ashker v. Brown submitted a letter condemning Pelican Bay prison
guards' "wellness checks," which have widely been viewed as sleep
deprivation. The letter was submitted to United States Magistrate Judge
Nandor Vadas, and calls on the California Department of Corrections
and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to put an end to the checks.

Last
month, prisoners achieved a historic victory in the settlement of
Ashker v. Brown where the indefinite long term solitary confinement was
effectively ended in California, with Magistrate Judge Vadas currently
monitoring implementation of the settlement terms.

The
guards at Pelican bay Security Housing Units have been conducting
disruptive cell checks every 30 minutes around the clock for three
months, causing prisoners widespread sleep disruption. The process is
loud and according to prisoners, "the method and noise from the checks
is torture."

Attorneys representing Pelican Bay SHU
prisoners have just completed extensive interviews with prisoners who
demand that "the every 30-minute checks have to be stopped or people
are going to get sick or worse." In addition, they report that regular
prison programs have been negatively impacted.

"To
sleep is a fundamental human right," said Anne Weills, a member of the
prisoners' legal team and one of the attorneys who conducted the
interviews with prisoners in Pelican Bay. "To take away such a basic
human right amounts to severe torture, adding to the already torturous
conditions of being in solitary confinement."

Most
prisoners report low energy, exhaustion and fatigue. Most state that
they have trouble concentrating. They try to read, but they nod off
and/or can't remember what they have read. Their writing is much slower
("I can't think to write"), and describe the constant welfare checks as
having a negative impact on their mental state.

While
this recent attorney survey was specifically focusing on sleep
deprivation and its effects, prisoners volunteered information about
the negative impact of these frequent checks: yard policy and practice
has reduced access to recreation, access to showers has been reduced,
programs and meals are being delayed, and property for those newly
transferred to Pelican Bay is still being delayed and withheld.

Sleep
deprivation constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Prisoners and
their attorneys are demanding that these checks be halted.

Free Albert Woodfox!

On
June 8, 2015 a federal judge granted Louisiana prisoner Albert Woodfox
unconditional release. Albert's conviction had already been overturned
three times - most recently in 2013 - yet every time the state has
appealed.

Today, Albert is still behind
bars after spending four decades in cruel, unjust solitary confinement.
He believes that he and fellow prisoners, Herman Wallace and Robert
King, were first placed in solitary confinement in retaliation for their
activism. All three men were members of the Black Panther Party.
Together, they came to be known as the Angola 3.

It is
time for the State of Louisiana to stop standing in the way of justice.
Call on Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal to ensure Albert's cruel and
unjust confinement is not his legacy. Learn more

Amnesty for all those arrested demanding justice for Freddie Gray!

Amnesty for ALL those arresteddemanding justice for Freddie Gray!

Sign and distribute the petition to drop the charges!Spread this effort with #Amnesty4Baltimore

"A riot is the language of the unheard" — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

An
estimated 300 people have been arrested in Baltimore in the last two
weeks. Many have been brutalized, beaten and pepper-sprayed by police in
the streets, and held for days in inhumane conditions. Those arrested
include journalists, medics and legal observers.

One
individual arrested for property destruction of a police vehicle is
now facing life in prison and is being held on $500,000 bail. That's
$150,000 more than the officer charged with the murder of Freddie Gray.

The legal system has made it clear that they care more about
broken windows than broken necks; more about a CVS than the lives of
Baltimore's Black residents.

They showed no hesitation in
arresting Baltimore's protesters and rebels, and sending in the
National Guard, but took 19 days to put a single one of the killer cops
in handcuffs. This was the outrageous double standard that led to the
Baltimore Uprising.

I
stand in solidarity with those in Baltimore who are demanding that all
charges be dropped against those who rose up against racism, police
brutality, oppressive social conditions and delay of justice in the case
of Freddie Gray. The whole world now recognizes that were it not for
this powerful grassroots movement, in all its forms, there would be no
indictment.

It is an outrage that peaceful
protesters have been brutalized, beaten and pepper-sprayed by police in
the streets, and held for days in inhumane conditions. Those arrested
include journalists and legal observers.

Even the youth
who are charged with property destruction and looting should be given
an amnesty. There is no reason a teenager -- provoked by racists and
justifiably angry -- should be facing life in prison for breaking the
windows of a police car.

The City of Baltimore should
work to rectify the conditions that led to this Uprising, rather than
criminalizing those who took action in response to those conditions.
Drop the charges now!

Sincerely,
[add your name below]

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CANCEL ALL STUDENT DEBT!

Sign the Petition:

http://cancelallstudentdebt.com/?code=kos

Dear President Obama, Senators, and Members of Congress:

Americans
now owe $1.3 trillion in student debt. Eighty-six percent of that
money is owed to the United States government. This is a crushing
burden for more than 40 million Americans and their families.

I urge you to take immediate action to forgive all student debt, public and private.

Campaign to Free Lorenzo Johnson
Updates from the New "Team Free Lorenzo Johnson":
Thank
you all for your relentless effort in the fight against wrongful
convictions and your determination to stand behind Lorenzo.

To
garner even more support for Lorenzo Johnson, we have been hard at
work updating the website and developing an even more formidable and
dedicated team. Please take a moment to visit the new site here.

During
the month of July, Lorenzo wrote two new articles for The Huffington
Post titled "When Prosecutors Deny Justice for the Innocent," and "Hurry
Up and Wait for Justice: The Struggle of Innocent Prisoners." In these
articles, Lorenzo discusses the flaws in the criminal justice system,
which he deems is a "serious problem in this country."

Lastly, Lorenzo has a message to you all.

A Letter from Lorenzo:

July 23, 2015
Dauphin County Prison
Harrisburg, PA

Dear Supporters,

I
hope all is well with everyone and your families. As for myself, I'm
still on my journey in pursuit of my vindication. Sorry for my website
being shut down for a couple of weeks. It was being transferred to a new
provider and management. I'm back and will do my best to keep
everything up to speed with what's taking place.

I
would like to thank ALL of my loyal supporters in the U.S. and in the
MANY different counties that have signed on to support my innocence.
Thanks for all of the letters, emails, photos, etc. Like I always say, I
get energy to carry on and inspiration hearing form you, please stay
engaged in my struggle.

As of this moment, nothing has
changed, but – the continued delay tactics are constantly being used by
my prosecutor, Deputy Attorney General William Stoycos. With the
mounting of evidence that supports my innocence and police and
prosecution misconduct claims that is steadily piling up, you would
think that I would be having a couple of evidentiary hearings on my
actual innocence appeal that have been pending since August 5, 2013.

At
the time of this writing, I've been moved from SCI-Mahanoy to Dauphin
County Prison and locked down for 23 hours and 40 minutes a day. In the
20 minutes I get to come out, I get to take a shower and make a short
call. Prosecutor Stoycos had me moved so I can be a witness in his
attempt to have my codefendant Corey Walker's attorney removed from
representing him. How dare he call into question an attorney who is
seeking justice for her client, when prosecutor Stoycos himself violated
multiple constitutional rights of mine and Mr. Walker, that led to us
being in prison for 20 years and counting.

Prosecutor
Stoycos is continuously abusing his power and his endless resources he
has at his disposal. He is not tough on crime, he's tough on Innocent
Prisoners. Prosecutor Stoycos is doing everything in his power to
prevent justice from taking place. I encourage everyone to continue to
speak out against my nightmare, invite others to get involved by going
to my website and signing my Freedom Petition and whatever else they're
willing to do.

On a positive note, I just enrolled in
warehouse management trade and started on July 13th. Unfortunately,
you're only allowed to miss a couple of days and Prosecutor Stoycos had
me temporarily transferred on July 14th … It's extremely hard on Lifers
to get into these trades due to the fact that Lifers are placed at the
back of the list of ALL vocational classes. I try to further my
education every chance I get, so when I do come home, I will be
certified in different work.

The month of the hearing
has come and left, without me being brought to the courthouse … I'm one
of MANY innocent prisoners who endures this non-stop madness in our
pursuit of Justice and Freedom. Now that my webpage is almost caught up
to speed, I promise prompt updates and as everyone knows that contacted
me directly, I personally reply to those in the states and out of the
country. For those who can make a financial contribution, everything
counts. Take care and let's continue to fight until we achieve Freedom,
Justice, and Equality for all innocent prisoners.

"The Pain Within"

Free the Innocent
Lorenzo "Cat" Johnson

[Note: Lorenzo has since been transferred back to SCI Mahanoy and can be reached at his usual address.]

Thank
you all for reading this message and please take the time to visit the
new website and contribute to Lorenzo's campaign for freedom!

Email: Through JPay using the code:
Lorenzo Johnson DF 1036 PA DOC
or
Directly at LorenzoJohnson17932@gmail.com

Have a wonderful day!
- The Team to Free Lorenzo Johnson

freelorenzojohnson.org

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Join the Fight to Free Rev. Pinkney!

Click HERE to view in browser

http://www.iacenter.org/prisoners/freepinkney-1-28-15/

UPDATE:

Today is the 406th day that Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor, Michigan
languishes in prison doing felony time for a misdemeanor crime he did not
commit. Today is also the day that Robert McKay, a spokesperson for the
Free Rev. Pinkney campaign, gave testimony before United Nations
representatives about the plight of Rev. Pinkney at a hearing held in
Chicago. The hearing was called in order to shed light upon the
mistreatment of African-Americans in the United States and put it on an
international stage. And yet as the UN representatives and audience heard
of the injustices in the Pinkney case many gasped in disbelief and asked
with frowns on their faces, "how is this possible?" But disbelief quickly
disappeared when everyone realized these were the same feelings they had
when they first heard of Flint and we all know what happened in Flint. FREE
REV. PINKNEY NOW.

On
December 15, 2014 the Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor, Michigan
was thrown into prison for 2.5 to 10 years. This 66-year-old leading
African American activist was tried and convicted in front of an
all-white jury and racist white judge and prosecutor for supposedly
altering 5 dates on a recall petition against the mayor of Benton
Harbor.

The prosecutor, with the judge's approval,
repeatedly told the jury "you don't need evidence to convict Mr.
Pinkney." And ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE WAS EVER PRESENTED THAT TIED REV.
PINKNEY TO THE 'ALTERED' PETITIONS. Rev. Pinkney was immediately led
away in handcuffs and thrown into Jackson Prison.

This is an outrageous charge. It is an outrageous conviction. It is an even more outrageous sentence! It must be appealed.

With your help supporters need to raise $20,000 for Rev. Pinkney's appeal.

Checks
can be made out to BANCO (Black Autonomy Network Community
Organization). This is the organization founded by Rev. Pinkney. Mail
them to: Mrs. Dorothy Pinkney, 1940 Union Street, Benton Harbor, MI
49022.

Donations can be accepted on-line at bhbanco.org – press the donate button.

For information on the decade long campaign to destroy Rev. Pinkney go to bhbanco.org and workers.org(search "Pinkney").

I
am now in Marquette prison over 15 hours from wife and family, sitting
in prison for a crime that was never committed. Judge Schrock and Mike
Sepic both admitted there was no evidence against me but now I sit in
prison facing 30 months. Schrock actually stated that he wanted to make
an example out of me. (to scare Benton Harbor residents even more...)
ONLY IN AMERICA. I now have an army to help fight Berrien County. When I
arrived at Jackson state prison on Dec. 15, I met several hundred
people from Detroit, Flint, Kalamazoo, and Grand Rapids. Some people
recognized me. There was an outstanding amount of support given by the
prison inmates. When I was transported to Marquette Prison it took 2
days. The prisoners knew who I was. One of the guards looked me up on
the internet and said, "who would believe Berrien County is this
racist."

Background to Campaign to free Rev. Pinkney

Michigan
political prisoner the Rev. Edward Pinkney is a victim of racist
injustice. He was sentenced to 30 months to 10 years for supposedly
changing the dates on 5 signatures on a petition to recall Benton Harbor
Mayor James Hightower.

No material or circumstantial
evidence was presented at the trial that would implicate Pinkney in the
purported5 felonies. Many believe that Pinkney, a Berrien County
activist and leader of the Black Autonomy Network Community Organization
(BANCO), is being punished by local authorities for opposing the
corporate plans of Whirlpool Corp, headquartered in Benton Harbor,
Michigan.

In 2012, Pinkney and BANCO led an "Occupy the
PGA [Professional Golfers' Association of America]" demonstration
against a world-renowned golf tournament held at the newly created Jack
Nicklaus Signature Golf Course on the shoreline of Lake Michigan. The
course was carved out of Jean Klock Park, which had been donated to the
city of Benton Harbor decades ago.

Berrien County
officials were determined to defeat the recall campaign against Mayor
Hightower, who opposed a program that would have taxed local
corporations in order to create jobs and improve conditions in Benton
Harbor, a majority African-American municipality. Like other Michigan
cities, it has been devastated by widespread poverty and unemployment.

The
Benton Harbor corporate power structure has used similar fraudulent
charges to stop past efforts to recall or vote out of office the racist
white officials, from mayor, judges, prosecutors in a majority Black
city. Rev Pinkney who always quotes scripture, as many Christian
ministers do, was even convicted for quoting scripture in a newspaper
column. This outrageous conviction was overturned on appeal. We must do
this again!

To sign the petition in support of the Rev. Edward Pinkney, log on to: tinyurl.com/ps4lwyn.

New Action--write letters to DoD officials requesting clemency for Chelsea!

Secretary of the Army John McHugh

President Obama has delegated review of Chelsea Manning's clemency appeal to individuals within the Department of Defense.

Please
write them to express your support for heroic WikiLeaks'
whistle-blower former US Army intelligence analyst PFC Chelsea
Manning's release from military prison.

It is
important that each of these authorities realize the wide support that
Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning enjoys worldwide. They need to be
reminded that millions understand that Manning is a political prisoner,
imprisoned for following her conscience. While it is highly unlikely
that any of these individuals would independently move to release
Manning, a reduction in Manning's outrageous 35-year prison sentence is
a possibility at this stage.

The
letter should focus on your support for Chelsea Manning, and
especially why you believe justice will be served if Chelsea Manning's
sentence is reduced. The letter should NOT be anti-military as this
will be unlikely to help.

A suggested message:
"Chelsea Manning has been punished enough for violating military
regulations in the course of being true to her conscience. I urge you
to use your authorityto reduce Pvt. Manning's sentence to time
served." Beyond that general message, feel free to personalize the
details as to why you believe Chelsea deserves clemency.

Consider
composing your letter on personalized letterhead -you can create this
yourself (here are templates and some tips for doing that).

A comment on this post will NOT be seen by DoD authorities–please send your letters to the addresses above

This
clemency petition is separate from Chelsea Manning's upcoming appeal
before the US Army Court of Criminal Appeals next year, where Manning's
new attorney Nancy Hollander will have an opportunity to highlight the
prosecution's—and the trial judge's—misconduct during last year's trial
at Ft. Meade, Maryland.

Help us continue to cover 100% of Chelsea's legal fees at this critical stage!

14) U.S. Fortifying Europe’s East to Deter Putin"The White House plans
to pay for the additional weapons and equipment with a budget request of more
than $3.4 billion for military spending in Europe in 2017, several officials
said Monday, more than quadrupling the current budget of $789 million."

FLINT,
Mich. — Standing at a microphone in September holding up a baby bottle,
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a local pediatrician, said she was deeply
worried about the water. The number of Flint children with elevated
levels of lead in their blood had risen alarmingly since the city
changed its water supply the previous year, her analysis showed.

Within
hours of Dr. Hanna-Attisha’s news conference, Michigan state officials
pushed back — hard. A Department of Health and Human Services official said that the state had not seen similar results
and that it was working with a much larger set of data. A Department of
Environmental Quality official was quoted as saying the pediatrician’s
remarks were “unfortunate,”
described the mood over Flint’s water as “near-hysteria” and said, as
the authorities had insisted for months, that the water met state and
federal standards.Dr. Hanna-Attisha said she went home that night
feeling shaky and sick, her heart racing. “When a state with a team of 50 epidemiologists tells you you’re wrong,” she said, “how can you not second-guess yourself?”

No one now argues with Dr. Hanna-Attisha’s findings. Not only has she been proved right, but Gov. Rick Snyder publicly thanked her on Tuesday “for bringing these issues to light.”

Nearly
a year and a half after the city started using water from the
long-polluted Flint River and soon after Dr. Hanna-Attisha’s news
conference, the authorities reversed course,
acknowledging that the number of children with high lead levels in this
struggling, industrial city had jumped, and no one should be drinking
unfiltered tap water. Residents had been complaining about the strange
smells and colors pouring from their taps ever since the switch.

Already
this month, federal and state investigations have been announced,
National Guard troops were distributing thousands of bottles of water
and filters, and Mr. Snyder was calling for millions in state dollars to
fix a situation he acknowledged was a “catastrophe.”

Yet
interviews, documents and emails show that as every major decision was
made over more than a year, officials at all levels of government acted
in ways that contributed to the public health emergency and allowed it
to persist for months. The government continued on its harmful course
even after lead levels were found to be rising, and after pointed,
detailed warnings came from a federal water expert, a Virginia Tech
researcher and others.

For more than a year after an emergency
manager — appointed by Mr. Snyder to oversee the city — approved a
switch from the Detroit system to water from the Flint River to save
money, workers assigned to manage the city’s water system failed to
lower lead risks with a simple solution: adding chemicals to prevent old
pipes from corroding and leaching metals like lead. Disagreements and
miscommunication between state and local officials about what federal
law requires of so-called corrosion control measures further delayed
fixing the problem, the documents show.

“This could have been
nipped in the bud before last summer,” said Daniel Giammar, an
environmental engineer at Washington University in St. Louis.

The
testing of homes in Flint for lead, too, was insufficient and flawed,
some experts say. Officials failed to focus on the many homes with lead
service lines that were most likely to be tainted, instead looking at
wider problems that would have muted the calls of alarm.

The city
authorities also urged, and state regulators allowed, methods of
sampling that experts say had been shown to underestimate lead levels.
Residents were advised, for example, to run their water before taking
samples, a move that tends to flush out concentrations of lead particles
that might have accumulated.

And through it all, officials
persisted in playing down and dismissing the concerns of Flint residents
— one referred to concerned residents groups as “anti-everything” — and
authoritatively vouching for the water’s purity, even as they
themselves were debating whether it was pure.

Three months before
Dr. Hanna-Attisha voiced her fears and findings, a regulations manager
for the federal Environmental Protection Agency had sent a detailed
interim report to the state and federal authorities that included
unambiguous warnings like this: “Recent drinking water sample results
indicate the presence of high lead results in the drinking water, which
is to be expected in a public water system that is not providing
corrosion control treatment.”

It is unclear how many people have
had elevated lead levels in their blood over the last year and a half.
The state has identified 233 since April 2014, but Dr. Hanna-Attisha
said its numbers likely “grossly underestimate” exposure, partly because
testing was generally limited to 1- and 2-year-olds until recently.
Lead remains traceable in the blood for only about a month after
exposure.

As criticisms have mounted, high-ranking officials have
resigned, including Howard Croft, Flint’s director of public works; Dan
Wyant, the state’s Environmental Quality director; and Susan Hedman, the E.P.A. regional director.

Dave
Murray, a spokesman for Mr. Snyder, issued a statement on Friday
calling the crisis “a failure of government — at the local, state and
federal levels.” He added that the governor was “committed to fixing the
problem and addressing the immediate and long-term needs of the people
of Flint.”

Dr. Hanna-Attisha also cited the wholesale failure of
government. “They had the information,” she said. “They just weren’t
looking closely or believing it.”

Repeated Assurances

On April 25, 2014, Flint, whose population had dwindled from more than 195,000 in 1960 to fewer than 100,000 people,
switched to using the Flint River as its water supply. The city had
drawn water from Detroit’s system for decades, but it was expensive, and
so Flint joined efforts to create a new, regional system that would
draw from Lake Huron.

Costs had become a central concern in a
city that has lost thousands of auto industry jobs. Fiscal troubles were
so significant that the state sent an emergency manager — with ultimate
decision-making power — to oversee a recovery. Until the new pipeline
to Lake Huron was constructed, the city would take its water from the
Flint River, which it had used as a backup.

City leaders toasted the switch with cups of water.
Residents were less sure. For years the Flint River had been a dumping
ground — for cars and even bodies. Aware of the doubts, the city’s first
news release on the switch trumpeted state and local officials’
assurances.

Then came the odd colors from the tap — greens and browns — and the offensive smells and tastes. Soon there were reports of rashes
and clumps of hair falling out. Parts from a General Motors engine
plant here were corroding, so the company stopped using Flint’s water.

Tammy
Loren, a mother of four who rents a home, was having a hard time
believing the answers she got about why her sons’ skin had itchy rashes.
At various times over the last year and a half, she said, their doctors
diagnosed scabies, ringworm
and other fungal infections, but prescribed medicines never worked. The
family even had the home treated by an exterminator, thinking the
problem might be fleas.

“The
water was brown, and it had a disgusting smell,” said Ms. Loren, whose
sons are now 14, 12, 11 and 10. “It was like dirt coming out.”

For
months, Ms. Loren said, she conducted her own research on the Internet
and asked plaintive questions on community Facebook pages. Her family
started drinking bottled water when it could, but Ms. Loren, who
receives federal disability payments for her back and other problems and
relies on food stamps, said it was not that often.

“There was times when we couldn’t afford it,” she said. “We just kept drinking out of the tap.”

Through
it all, the government reassurances were constant, insistent and
unequivocal. “It’s a quality, safe product,” Mayor Dayne Walling told The Flint Journal in June 2014.

At
points, the city’s water tested positive for E. coli bacteria, which
can cause intestinal illness, and residents were advised to boil their
water. City officials pumped extra chlorine into the system to address
the bacteria issue, which led to elevated levels of total
trihalomethanes, or TTHMs, chemical compounds that may cause health
problems after long-term exposure.

A state briefing in February
last year acknowledged the TTHM level was “not ‘nothing’ ” but also not
an imminent “threat to public health.”

But
officials’ efforts to soothe residents about other contaminants seemed
to overshadow the growing signs of trouble about lead.

By March 2015, with residents turning up at public events bearing bottles of murky water,
the City Council voted to “do all things necessary” to reconnect to
Detroit’s water system. But the state-appointed emergency manager,
Gerald Ambrose, said no. He repeated the official mantra: The water
meets state and federal standards. And he noted, once more, that Detroit
water was among the most costly in the state.

“Water from Detroit is no safer than water from Flint,” Mr. Ambrose said.

Corrosion Control Failure

Behind the scenes, though, officials seemed far less sure.

By
the end of February, Miguel Del Toral, the E.P.A. regulations manager
who had learned of high lead content in one Flint resident’s water, was
raising a fundamental question with his state and federal colleagues:
What was Flint using to treat the river water to avoid corrosion?

“They
are required to have O.C.C.T. in place which is why I was asking what
they were using,” he wrote in an email on Feb. 27, using the initials
for “optimal corrosion control treatment.”Surely, the assumption was,
the city was adding a chemical to the water to coat its aging pipes and
prevent corrosion, since controlling corrosion is required by a federal
rule governing lead and copper. The water that Flint had drawn for years
via Detroit from Lake Huron had been treated with orthophosphate, a
common anti-corrosion additive. And Flint River water is naturally even
harder and more corrosive, experts say, than the water the city was
buying from Detroit.

An official from Michigan’s Department of
Environmental Quality answered Mr. Del Toral’s inquiry the same day:
Flint has “an optimized corrosion control program.” But less than two
months later, the state said it had been wrong. There actually was no
treatment in place in Flint to stop corrosion, a timeline of events
provided by the state now shows.

The authorities themselves did
not agree on what the federal rules meant. Some state officials believed
that testing needed to be done over a year before a new plan could be
put in place to block corrosion, documents suggest, while other
officials thought the treatment with chemicals needed to start the
moment Flint began receiving water from the river.

“We made a
mistake,” Mr. Wyant, then the state’s environmental quality director,
said in October. Corrosion controls, he said, “should have been required
from the beginning.”

The lead issues should have been
anticipated long before the city switched water supplies, experts said.
“I think that’s pretty obvious, in going from having a corrosion
inhibitor to not having one, you might have expected to have increased
corrosion,” said Professor Giammar.

By June, Mr. Del Toral wrote
in a memo to state and federal colleagues that Flint had essentially
stopped providing treatment used to mitigate lead and copper levels in
drinking water, which he called a “major concern from a public health
standpoint.”

E.P.A. officials contend that they pressed Michigan
regulators to take more decisive action after Mr. Del Toral’s report,
but for months federal officials did little to inform the public of
those findings or take decisive action. It was not until Thursday that
the federal agency issued an emergency order and assumed oversight of
lead testing in Flint.

There
was so much lead found in water at the home of LeeAnne Walters that
officials shut her water off in April and temporarily installed a garden
hose to carry water from a neighbor’s house. Still, state officials
noted that the city’s levels remained within federal and state
standards.

But the water tests themselves were flawed, experts say.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, which conducted its own investigation, as did researchers at Virginia Tech,
the city was not only advising residents to run their water before
collecting a sample, but doing other things to “skew the outcome of its
tests to produce favorable results.” For example, the A.C.L.U. reported
in September, the city retested water from homes found to have low lead
levels, but not from homes whose initial levels were high.

The
city also appeared to be unsure which houses had lead service lines
connecting them to its water distribution system, the report said.
Federal law requires cities testing for lead in drinking water to focus
on homes with the highest risk for contamination, but the report found
no evidence Flint had done so.

Dr. Hanna-Attisha said that after
she shared her methodology with the state, it replicated her findings.
Mr. Snyder then announced that the state would provide filters and test
tap water.

Marc Edwards, the Virginia Tech professor who helped
identify and expose Flint’s lead problem, said the state “had no sense
of urgency at all, nor did E.P.A.”

Ms. Loren, the mother of four,
said her sons’ skin remained irritated, and she is worrying obsessively
about their lead levels, particularly that of her 11-year-old, who has
learning disabilities.

“My trust in everybody is completely gone,
out the door,” she said. “We’ve been lied to so much, and these aren’t
little white lies. These lies are affecting our kids for the rest of
their lives, and it breaks my heart.”

Abby Goodnough reported from Flint, and Monica Davey and Mitch Smith from Chicago.

LOS ANGELES — Health officials have tested the air and deemed it safe. Yes, the awful smell from a huge natural gas leak near the Porter Ranch neighborhood may cause vomiting,
nosebleeds and other short-term symptoms, they say, but they have
assured residents that it does not pose long-term health risks.

Many people here, however, simply do not buy it. And now they look warily toward Flint, Mich.,
where the switch to a new water supply, which state officials insisted
for months was safe, has left children with high levels of lead in their
blood.

With Flint as a potent warning, confidence in public
agencies has collapsed here after the gas leak. Unconvinced by health
department reassurances, residents have turned for guidance to lawyers
who are spearheading lawsuits. And the eroding public trust now poses
its own threat to the community: Of the thousands of families who have
fled the area, many say they are not sure when they will feel safe
returning, if ever.

“Do we believe the health department? No,”
said David Balen, a member of Porter Ranch’s neighborhood council. “The
gas company? No. If the gas company called tomorrow and offered to buy
our house, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

Public trust has been a
frequent casualty of environmental disasters. Hinkley, Calif., has
slowly turned into a ghost town in the two decades since residents won a
$333 million settlement from Pacific Gas & Electric for
contaminating the water with chromium 6, a cancer-causing
heavy metal, as fears about the water have persisted. And two years
after a chemical spill in Charleston, W.Va., some residents still will
not drink the tap water.

No consistently high levels of heavy
metals or known carcinogens have been found in Porter Ranch, a wealthy
master-planned neighborhood in the hills at the edge of the San Fernando
Valley.

Still, health officials have found it nearly impossible to break through the public’s skepticism.

Last
week, the Los Angeles Department of Public Health announced that air
quality monitoring would be stepped up even further. And officials
reiterated that, based on the current data, they saw no indication that
the gas leak posed long-term health risks.

The gas well, which
began spewing methane and other chemicals in late October, will not be
plugged until late February at the earliest, according to the Southern
California Gas Company, which owns the natural gas
storage field where the leaking well is.Angelo J. Bellomo, the health
department’s deputy director for health protection, said the levels of
benzene, a known carcinogen found in natural gas, “have generally been
consistent with what we find throughout the L.A. basin.”

Mr.
Bellomo acknowledged that it was “a difficult message to get out.” The
public, he said, has “heard government reassure them before, only to
find that government flip-flops on what they’re saying.”

Although
benzene levels have largely been normal, they were elevated for a
handful of days late last year, and some outside scientists questioned
whether other chemicals whose effects are less known could be causing
some symptoms.

But little of the public skepticism in Porter
Ranch is based on scientific measurements. More often, residents cited a
broader distrust of the government, or the conclusion that breathing in
gas all day simply could not be healthy.

Johnny Mikaili, 19,
said he and his family were still waiting for the gas company to
relocate them. In the meantime, his 11-year-old brother has developed a
series of respiratory problems, which Mr. Mikaili said were caused by
the gas leak, regardless of what medical officials or anyone else might
say.

“I mean, use common sense, man,” he said. “It’s natural gas
in the air, being pumped out of the earth from a thousand feet down, and
now you’re inhaling it.”

And even as health officials have tried
to calm nerves, some elected officials have emphasized the absence of
scientific studies on some chemicals. Two big-name environmental health
advocates, Erin Brockovich and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have also held
community meetings in which they have recruited residents to sign onto
lawsuits against the gas company.

“People have lost faith in the
agencies that are supposed to protect them — look what happened in
Flint,” said Mr. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer who was also involved
in the case against BP over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

Speaking of Porter Ranch, he said, “They see the health department as a sock puppet for the industry it’s supposed to regulate.”

More
than a dozen lawsuits have been filed against the gas company, and more
than 2,000 families have left the area, with food and lodging paid for
by the Southern California Gas Company. But the lawsuits have divided
the community between those who have stayed in the area despite the
smell — and who trust the science about the safety of remaining there —
and those who believe that the area is unsafe.

Bryan Bernhard,
36, said some of his neighbors who had filed for relocation were still
at home most of the time, and were eating at a hotel only for the free
meals.

“It’s really a big money grab — I don’t think the smell is
that bad,” he said. “The community’s really turning on itself, and it’s
kind of sad. People don’t realize the lawyers are going to get most of
the money.”

But he added that if his home were in an area where the smell of gas was constant, he would probably relocate.

Many
of those who have relocated said they did go home sometimes — to check
mail, to make sure their homes have not been burglarized or on occasion
to spend a night in their own beds.

Convinced that many families
will not come back as long as the gas storage field remains active, a
group of residents wants to try to shut the field down entirely; many of
the wells date to the 1940s.

Naheed Khaja, 61, said she wanted
to move back once the leak was stopped. But asked if she trusted the
health department’s assurances, she said, “No.”

Ms. Khaja, who
works in real estate, said the value of some homes, many of which were
worth nearly $1 million, had fallen by as much as 25 percent since the
leak.

“I’d love to come back once things get back to normal,” she
said. But she added, “Nobody knows the long-term effects. I am
skeptical.”

Ciana Tallas, 37, a teacher who moved with her
daughter out of the area, agreed. “I’m not thinking about a permanent
relocation,” she said. But she added that she was not reassured by the
health department. “How do they know?”

Ms. Brockovich, whose work
exposing the chemical contamination in Hinkley inspired a 2000 movie
named after her, said that in every community she had worked in, she had
seen people who did not want to believe that anything serious was
wrong.

“We don’t want to create a great deal of fear — it already
exists,” Ms. Brockovich said. “But when you have 5,000 people all
experiencing the same symptoms, why would you continue to believe what
Southern California Gas says, that it can’t harm you?”

PORT-AU-PRINCE,
Haiti — Volcy Assad, a Haitian political activist, stood before an
enormous plume of black smoke emanating from a pile of burning tires and
made it clear that the demands of protesters had changed.

“Today we are demanding the departure of Michel Martelly,”
Mr. Assad said on Saturday, referring to the Haitian president. Around
him, groups of young men, faces covered with T-shirts and bandannas to
shield from tear gas, had blocked the streets with rocks.

One day
earlier, officials had bowed to widespread civil unrest and postponed a
single-candidate presidential runoff vote that was to be held on
Sunday. Now, feeling emboldened in their objections to the first round
of voting that many saw as deeply fraudulent, protesters are demanding
the ouster of President Martelly. With just two weeks left in office, he
has become the central figure in a growing political scandal here that
threatens the stability of a nation with a long history of social unrest
and turmoil.Mr. Martelly’s supporters took to the streets on Sunday in
counterprotests and vowed to keep him in office, a situation of
competing rallies that experts feared would lead to violence. In
Port-au-Prince this weekend, protesters burned cars and barricaded
streets as the police responded with water cannons and tear gas.

In
a situation several experts described as “fluid,” it was increasingly
unclear whether Mr. Martelly would remain in office until Feb. 7, when
his mandate is scheduled to end. “They intend to push the insurrection
to force the president to leave before Feb. 7,” said Annibal Coffy, a
lawyer who has served as a consultant to the Haitian Senate. “I think
there is no way the country will survive a week of violent
manifestations.”

The October presidential race, in which 54
candidates competed, was mired in fraud, according to opposition leaders
and human rights groups. Because no candidate won a majority, a runoff
was scheduled for Sunday, but protesters who expected a rigged outcome
blocked streets and burned voting centers, leading to the
postponement.The United States State Department, which has been
criticized for supporting the disputed election, issued a statement on
Sunday condemning the protests.

“The United States is taking great interest in how elections in Haiti
are unfolding,” Mark Toner, a deputy spokesman, said in a statement,
“and expects that persons responsible for organizing, financing or
participating in electoral intimidation and violence will be held
accountable in accordance with Haitian law.”

On Election Day in
October, the elections board distributed special passes to 900,000
observers from all political parties, who were allowed to vote outside
their home precincts. Human rights groups said party loyalists used the
accreditations to cast multiple ballots.

Mr. Martelly’s
handpicked successor, a banana exporter named Jovenel Moïse, came in
first with 33 percent of the vote. Mr. Moïse is a virtual unknown, and
many members of the opposition believed that the vote had been rigged on
his behalf. The government denied the accusations. The United States
and international observer groups said quick counts showed that the
results of the race were accurate, despite the irregularities.

Jude
Célestin, a former government construction official who came in second,
boycotted the runoff and refused to campaign. Civic, business and
religious leaders argued that a one-candidate runoff should not take
place, but Mr. Martelly failed to recognize the growing discontent among
the populace. As recently as Thursday, he gave a combative radio
address insisting that the vote would go forward, which further
infuriated opposition groups. The vote was canceled hours later, but the
protests continued. Mr. Martelly’s spokesman did not respond to
requests for comment on Sunday.

Mr. Martelly, a former Carnival
singer known as Sweet Micky, is blamed for the electoral crisis because
he failed to hold elections during his five years in office. The terms
of every elected official in the country eventually expired, leaving Mr.
Martelly to rule by decree for an entire year.

He was also
criticized for efforts to change municipal boundaries in an area where
he owns property and for creating a police brigade accused of repressive
tactics. “The Martelly regime hasn’t brought anything for the
population,” said Yves Jean Joseph, 34, an unemployed protester. “He had
four years to hold elections, and instead he destroyed the Parliament.
What we had were not elections. It was ballot stuffing.”

Politicians
spent the weekend in back-room negotiations to determine who would lead
a transitional government after Mr. Martelly’s term ends. People close
to the negotiations said the president wanted to extend his term until a
new election was held.

Guy Philippe, a Senate candidate whose runoff was also delayed, called for an uprising if the president were forced out.

“I
am ready and we are ready to defend the democracy, no transition,” he
said. “The president will stay and continue his mandate as requested by
the law.”

Mr. Philippe, a fugitive
wanted by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, was among
the leaders of a 2004 coup that led to the ouster of President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

DETROIT
— In Kathy Aaron’s decrepit public school, the heat fills the air with a
moldy, rancid odor. Cockroaches, some three inches long, scuttle about
until they are squashed by a student who volunteers for the task. Water
drips from a leaky roof onto the gymnasium floor.

“We have rodents out in the middle of the day,” said Ms. Aaron, a teacher of 18 years. “Like they’re coming to class.”

Detroit’s
public schools are a daily shock to the senses, run down after years of
neglect and mismanagement, while failing academically and teetering on
the edge of financial collapse. On Wednesday, teachers again protested
the conditions, calling in sick en masse and forcing a shutdown of most
of the city’s almost 100 schools.As Michigan’s governor, Rick Snyder,
grapples with the crisis in Flint,
where residents have been poisoned by the local water supply under a
state-appointed emergency manager, he has also had to confront the
emergency here, another poor, largely African-American city with a
problem that has also festered under state control.

Things have become so bad, district officials say, that the Detroit public school system could be insolvent by April.

“They’re
in need of a transformational change,” Mr. Snyder, a Republican,
acknowledged in his State of the State speech Tuesday. “Too many schools
are failing at their central task. Not all Detroit students are getting
the education they deserve.”

Many worry that the state of the
schools will hamper Detroit’s recovery from bankruptcy, a recovery
evident in the new loft-style townhouses and the bustling Whole Foods
that Ms. Aaron passes near her school, where she teaches fifth grade.

Residents
wonder how the city can ever recoup its lost population and attract
young families if the public schools are in abysmal shape.

“As we
begin to rebuild this city and we’re seeing money and development
moving in, people are understanding that there is no way we can improve
Detroit without a strong educational system,” said Mary Sheffield, a
native of Detroit and a City Council member. “We have businesses and
restaurants and arenas, but our schools are falling apart and our
children are uneducated. There is no Detroit without good schools.”

In
protest over the conditions, teachers began a series of sickouts in
recent weeks, inconveniencing many families and reducing classroom
instruction time for many students who could ill afford it, but pushing
the matter to the forefront.

The problems predate the municipal
bankruptcy. One of the biggest is enrollment, which has been in free
fall. In 2000, Detroit Public Schools had close to 150,000 students;
this year, there are fewer than 45,000.

In recent decades, large
numbers of people have left Detroit, which was once the nation’s fourth
most populous city. Many of those who stayed chose to enroll their
children in traditional public schools in the suburbs, or in charter schools, which more than half of school-age children from Detroit now attend.

According
to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, about 20 percent
of school-age children in Detroit were attending charter schools in 2006. By 2014, that number was up to 55 percent.

Most
of the charter schools are outside district control but receive public
money, drawing funds from the traditional system that would be used for
its overhead and wages, critics complain.

Even after closing
schools and reducing its work force, the Detroit Public Schools have
$3.5 billion in outstanding debt, much of it from pension liabilities,
according to a report this month from the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, a nonpartisan public affairs research organization in Lansing.

The
appointment in 2009 of an emergency manager to take charge of the
struggling district has not turned the finances around. (The appointment
predates the election of Mr. Snyder in 2010, but he has elected to
maintain the arrangement.)

“We’re on our fourth emergency manager
here,” said Craig Thiel, a senior research associate for the Citizens
Research Council. “They each seem to be borrowing from the same
playbook: figure out a way to get through the current year, end the year
without going insolvent, and then push costs onto the next year in the
hopes that things will improve in some way. They’re dealing with these
debts that should have been paid off years ago that have instead been
put on future budgets.”

Academically, the district’s performance
is also alarming. Among big-city school districts, Detroit has come in
last every year since 2012, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress exam. Only 27 percent of fourth graders are proficient in reading; 36 percent are proficient in math.

In
response to the sickouts, the mayor of Detroit, Mike Duggan, has
ordered a districtwide inspection of each school. Last week, while
touring the schools, he came upon a dead mouse in an elementary school.

Mr.
Snyder has pushed a plan to create a new school district to run the
existing schools, spinning off the old one as a subsidiary that would
exist solely to pay down debt. In his speech Tuesday, he urged lawmakers
to pass that legislation.

Last week, the Michigan Senate
introduced legislation that would establish a nine-person school board,
appointed by Mr. Snyder, a Republican, and Mr. Duggan, a Democrat, which
would eventually hire a district superintendent.

Many people in
Detroit worry that it will not be enough to save their schools. They
want a school board that will be elected locally, bringing an end to
state-appointed emergency management. And they are calling for more
immediate intervention to address the deteriorating state of school
buildings.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Snyder, who was also dealing
with the public health crisis in Flint caused by an emergency manager’s
decision to switch the city’s tap water source to save money, said he
understood the frustrations.

“Governor Snyder is working to
improve academics and finances in Detroit schools,” said Laura Biehl,
the spokeswoman. “Right now, the district pays a figure equal to $1,100
per child for debt service. That’s money that can best be spent in the
classroom.”

Last week, many Detroit schools were shuttered and
empty because of the sickouts. Outside the Durfee Elementary-Middle
School on the city’s west side, where heating problems have been so
severe that the school has relied on portable heaters, a handwritten
sign on the door announced “School Close.”

At Palmer Park
Preparatory Academy, a school that the Detroit Federation of Teachers
said was ridden with rats and crumbling ceilings, parents said they were
exhausted by the problems.

Tanya Cox, who sends three of her
children there, said there are 42 students in her son Damir’s
fourth-grade class. “With so many kids in the classroom,” she said, “I
don’t think the teachers can teach.”

Not everyone has been
sympathetic to the teachers’ protest. “There is no excuse for the
illegal teacher strikes that have closed dozens of schools in the past
week,” an editorial in The Detroit News said last week.

On
Wednesday, the Detroit Public Schools sought a temporary injunction
against more than two dozen teachers in response to the sickouts,
arguing that they had deprived students of access to education.

Michelle
Zdrodowski, a spokeswoman for Detroit Public Schools, said in a
statement, “These ongoing illegal actions chosen by teachers represent
an extreme disservice to the more than 44,790 students and their
families who today lost another day of instruction and were again
inconvenienced or caused to lose wages due to these closures.”

Many
state legislators from outside Detroit have balked at having the state
take on the school district’s substantial debts. Yet they are hesitant
to allow the district to continue on a path to insolvency, given the
level of urgency.

“They’re in a dire crisis level,” said Camille
Wilson, an associate professor of education at the University of
Michigan,. “On one hand, the state has a tremendous amount of
responsibility to help with some financial relief, given that they’ve
managed and controlled part of the system for many years now. On the
other hand, I think the local people and the citizens should be allowed
to play a role as well.”

Last week at the Charles L. Spain school
in Midtown, where Ms. Aaron teaches, staff members pointed out their
building’s deterioration. In the gym, the air was filled with a
stifling, moldy smell. The floors were buckled and partly ripped out,
revealing a damp, black substance underneath.

“You hear the water
dripping?” said Lakia Wilson, the guidance counselor, nodding at the
spot on the floor where water from the roof had accumulated into a
cloudy pool. The day after a reporter and a photographer were given a
tour of the building, health officials arrived at the school and blocked
access to the gym with sheets of plastic, a teacher said.

Andre
Harlan, the gym teacher at the Spain school, said he had breathing
problems that he traced to the air quality in the gym, which the school
stopped using two months ago.

Attorneys
for the family of Tamir Rice, who was fatally shot by two Cleveland
police officers in November 2014, have been joined by local pastors in
renewing their call for a special prosecutor in light of revelations
about the grand jury decision last week.

Officials revealed on
Wednesday that the grand jury declined to indict police Officers Timothy
Leehmann and Frand Garmback, after the fatal shooting of the
12-year-old African-American boy, never took a vote on the decision.

The New York Daily News
reported that the panel that decided that the two Cleveland Police
Officers were justified in using lethal force in the shooting of Rice,
who allegedly grabbed a pellet gun from his waist, never actually took a
vote.

Following the announcement, at a Martin Luther King Jr.
Day prayer event, local members of the United Pastors in Mission and
other clergy demanded that state lawmakers appoint a special prosecutor
for all future police-involved shootings.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer
reported that the attorneys for the Rice family have called for a
special prosecutor along with a federal probe into the shooting of Tamir
at the Cudell Recreation Center.

The revelation about the grand
jury no vote was released in documents from the Cuyahoga County
prosecutor’s office last week. It followed the announcement by
prosecutor Tim McGinty last month that Leehman and Garmback would not
face criminal charges.

McGinty said that Loehmann was justified
in shooting Rice, despite the fact that he was a rookie officer under
the training of Garmback, because he “had reason to fear for his life.”
He added that when Rice grabbed the pellet gun, officer Loehmann feared
for not only his safety, but that of others.

After release of the
video showing that Loehmann fired the fatal shots within seconds of
leaving the police vehicle when he and Garmback arrived on the scene,
the case has been watched closely by the whole nation.

In a
statement released Wednesday night, calling the announcement “yet
another example of the disturbing and troubling way the grand jury
process has been handled by the local prosecutor,” Rice’s family
attorney, Earl Ward, said the family believed the jury took a vote.

“By
‘no indictment,’ we understood that to mean that there was a vote,”
Ward told the Daily News. “If there was no vote, then we’ve all been
bamboozled,” added the attorney who has slammed McGinty’s handling of
the case for months.

“We’ve always thought that this was some sort of a charade,” Ward continued. “If there was no vote, then it just confirms that.”

Although
it didn’t say if or how the grand jury had voted in the case of the
shooting of Rice, a statement from Joe Frolik, spokesman for the
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office, included a copy of the decision.
The statement was an attempt to describe how grand juries function in
the office’s investigation into civilians who have suffered at the hands
of deadly force used by the police.

“The grand jurors have
concluded the investigation into the Nov. 22, 2014, death of Tamir Rice
and have declined to issue criminal charges,” the grand jury decision
said.

“This was an investigative grand jury,” Frolik told
Cleveland Scene. “This was kind of their role. Sometimes, a grand jury,
after its investigation, will decide if there are no votes to be taken
on charges.”

In a joint statement aimed at prodding the Ohio
Legislature into doing something about McGinty and also to appoint a
special prosecutor for all future police shootings, the clergy members
wrote in a joint statement: “As a result, many in our ranks have
completely lost confidence in Mr. McGinty and feel that he has failed us
all.”

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled that
people sentenced to life in prison as juveniles should be given the
chance to argue for their release—a decision that could chart a "bold
new direction" toward justice system reform, a leading human rights
group said.

The U.S. is the only country that still sentences minors to life in prison without parole.

In a 6-3 vote Monday,
the court said its 2012 decision in Miller v. Alabama, which abolished
mandatory life sentences without parole for juveniles, applies
retroactively. That means people still in prison for crimes committed as
children will now have the chance to receive new sentencing or an
opportunity to argue for their release, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote
for the majority.

The ruling stems from the case of Montgomery
v. Louisiana. The plaintiff, Henry Montgomery, was convicted of shooting
dead a sheriff's deputy in Baton Rouge in 1963 and sentenced to life in
prison at 17 years old; now, at 69, Montgomery is arguing that his
rehabilitation in prison should make him eligible for parole, an appeal
that was recently rejected by the Louisiana Supreme Court.

Monday's
decision overturns the state's ruling. In delivering the verdict,
Kennedy also echoed an argument long espoused by human rights
advocates—that children and minors should never be sentenced to life in
prison.

Extending parole eligibility to those who were sentenced
as juveniles "would neither impose an onerous burden on the States nor
disturb the finality of state convictions," he wrote
(pdf). "And it would afford someone like Montgomery, who submits that
he has evolved from a troubled, misguided youth to a model member of the
prison community, the opportunity to demonstrate the truth of Miller's
central intuition—that children who commit even heinous crimes are
capable of change."

Since the 2012 decision, most states agreed
to review old cases of children sentenced to life in prison. Seven,
including Louisiana, refused, arguing that the ruling was not retroactive. Monday's decision sends Montgomery's case back to lower courts.

Amnesty International USA praised the ruling but cautioned that it only constitutes a step toward reform.

"While
every other country in the world rejects the punishment of life without
parole for children, the U.S. remains the only country that locks up
kids and throws away the key," said Jasmine Heiss, Amnesty senior
campaigner.

Most states, not only those affected by Miller, still
allow juveniles to be sentenced to life without a chance of parole as
long as the sentence is imposed through individual review rather than as
a result of a mandatory statute.

"This decision
represents an opportunity for the United States to chart a bold new
direction toward reform in juvenile justice, and for the U.S. criminal
justice system as a whole," Heiss said. "This ruling comes as the United
States is grappling with the very real human rights crisis of mass
incarceration. It should not stop here."

Jody Kent Lavy, director and national coordinator at the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, also said,
"People told as children that they would leave prison only in a pine
box now will have an opportunity to demonstrate that they have changed
and are ready to re-enter society. All children possess the capacity for
change, and this ruling affirms that when and where a youth committed a
crime should not determine whether he or she should die in prison."

Daniel Macallair, executive director of Center of Juvenile and Criminal Justice, told the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange that the decision was "the right thing to do."

"The
rest of the world has recognized the idea that it’s not a good idea to
sentence children to die in prison without any hope of release,"
Macallair said.

Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito dissented.

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

7) Paying For Poisoned Water
Flint residents were told that their children could be taken away if they
don’t pay for the city’s poison water

January
24, 2016, Flint, Michigan—As the water crisis in Flint deepens, it is
becoming apparent that the effects of the lead-infested water are not
just a health hazard, but the situation has the potential of ruining
many more lives outside of the poison issue. There is no denying that
the water in Flint is undrinkable and that it is contaminated with lead
and other substances, and it is clear that the government of Flint is responsible for the problem.

However,
the city’s government continues to charge people for the poison water
and then threatening to foreclose their home or take their children if
they refuse to pay. Michigan law states that parents are neglectful if
they do not have running water in their home, and if they chose not to
pay for water they can’t drink anyway, then they could be guilty of
child endangerment. Activists in Flint say that some residents have
already received similar threats from the government if they refuse to
pay their bills.

Flint residents have recently filed two class action lawsuits
calling for all water bills since April of 2014 to be considered null
and void because of the fact that the water was poisonous.

“We
are seeking for the court to declare that all the bills that have been
issued for usage of water invalid because the water has not been fit for
its intended purpose,” said Trachelle Young, one of the attorneys
bringing the lawsuit said in court.

“Essentially, the residents
have been getting billed for water that they cannot use. Because of
that, we do not feel that is a fair way to treat the residents,” Young
added.

Recent estimates have indicated that it could take up to 15 years and over $60 million
to fix the problem, and the residents will be essentially forced to
live there until the problem is solved. Despite the fact that the issue
is obviously the government’s responsibility, they have made it illegal
for people to sell their homes because of the fact that they are known
to carry contaminated water. Meanwhile, residents are still left to
purchase bottled water on their own, in addition to paying their water
bill.

Although this problem is finally getting national media
attention in Flint, they aren’t the only city with contaminated water
supplies. In fact, a recent report published by the Guardian showed that public water supplies across the country were experiencing similar issues.

This
crisis highlights the many dangers of allowing the government to
maintain a monopoly on the water supply and calls attention to the fact
that decentralized solutions to water distribution should be a goal that
we start working towards.

There
are about 920,000 pygmies in central Africa, but their forest
communities are fragmented and endangered by logging, mining and land
clearance, according to a consortium of researchers who collaborated to
create the first scientific estimate of the size of the population.

Because there is so little census data on pygmies, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where most of them live, the survey relied on techniques normally used for counting animals and plants.

Starting
with the known locations and habits of 654 pygmy camps in five
countries, the scientists mapped out grids of terrain across central
Africa where similar camps could exist.Many pygmies live by hunting,
fishing, gathering and garden-plot farming, so encampments were
considered more likely to arise in deep rain forest, near rivers, far
from cities and far from the intensive farming and animal husbandry
practiced by other ethnic groups.

Pygmies are believed to be
Africa’s oldest human population. They spread out across the continent
and then, scientists think, broke into four large subgroups as waves of
other populations — particularly Bantus from the region that is now
Nigeria and Cameroon — migrated through their territories and
intermarried.

Genetically, they are related to the Khoisan people of southern Africa who speak “click” languages.

Pygmies
are often exploited or even enslaved by other groups. Their existence
is also threatened by “industrialization and the expansion of market-led
initiatives, displacement, forced sedentarization, disease and
deforestation,” said Jesús Olivero, a biogeographer at the University of
Málaga in Spain and one of the lead authors.

HOUSTON — A grand jury here that was investigating accusations of misconduct against Planned Parenthood has instead indicted two abortion opponents who made undercover videos of the organization.

Prosecutors in Harris County said one of the leaders of the Center for Medical Progress — an anti-abortion group that made secretly recorded videos purporting to show Planned Parenthood
officials trying to illegally profit from the sale of fetal tissue —
had been indicted on a charge of tampering with a governmental record, a
felony, and on a misdemeanor charge related to purchasing human organs.

That
leader, David R. Daleiden, 27, the director of the center, had posed as
a biotechnology representative to infiltrate Planned Parenthood
affiliates and surreptitiously record his efforts to procure tissue for
research. Another center employee, Sandra S. Merritt, 62, was indicted
on a felony charge of tampering with a governmental record.

The
record-tampering charges accused Mr. Daleiden and Ms. Merritt of making
and presenting fake California driver’s licenses, with the intent to
defraud, for their April meeting at Planned Parenthood in Houston.

Abortion
opponents claimed that the videos, which were released starting in
July, revealed that Planned Parenthood was engaged in the illegal sale
of body parts — a charge that the organization has denied and that has
not been supported in numerous congressional and state investigations
triggered by the release of the videos.

On Monday, the Harris
County district attorney, Devon Anderson, said in a statement that grand
jurors had cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing.

She
declined to provide details about the case against Mr. Daleiden and Ms.
Merritt, including any documents or evidence presented to the grand
jury, citing state law on the secrecy of grand jury proceedings.

“As
I stated at the outset of this investigation, we must go where the
evidence leads us,” Ms. Anderson said. “All the evidence uncovered in
the course of this investigation was presented to the grand jury. I
respect their decision on this difficult case.”

In a statement on
Monday night, Mr. Daleiden said: “The Center for Medical Progress uses
the same undercover techniques that investigative journalists have used
for decades in exercising our First Amendment rights to freedom of
speech and of the press, and follows all applicable laws. We respect the
processes of the Harris County district attorney, and note that buying
fetal tissue requires a seller as well. Planned Parenthood still cannot
deny the admissions from their leadership about fetal organ sales
captured on video for all the world to see.”

The release of the
videos last summer created a furor and gave new strength to the
conservative drive to defund Planned Parenthood. The organization was
forced to apologize
for the casual tone that one of its officials had used to discuss a
possible transfer of fetal tissue to what she believed was a legitimate
medical company. But Planned Parenthood said the fees being discussed
were to cover costs and were legal.

Gov. Greg Abbott, a
Republican, said on Monday that the inspector general of the state’s
Health and Human Services Commission and the Texas attorney general’s
office have been investigating Planned Parenthood’s actions.

“Nothing
about today’s announcement in Harris County impacts the state’s ongoing
investigation,” Mr. Abbott said in a statement. “The State of Texas
will continue to protect life, and I will continue to support
legislation prohibiting the sale or transfer of fetal tissue.”

The
state attorney general, Ken Paxton, said in a statement: “The fact
remains that the videos exposed the horrific nature of abortion and the
shameful disregard for human life of the abortion industry. The state’s
investigation of Planned Parenthood is ongoing.”

The case here
started in August, when Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican and an
outspoken opponent of abortion and Planned Parenthood, asked Ms.
Anderson to open a criminal investigation into the organization. His
request came after the release of an undercover video recorded at a
Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast office in Houston with a research official
for the organization.

Mr. Patrick, in a statement on Monday,
played down the significance of the indictment, saying the recent
anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision was “a solid reminder of the
over 50 million innocent lives that have been lost to abortions.”

He
added, “I will never be deterred from standing up to fight to protect
the unborn.”Ms. Anderson, a Republican who was appointed district
attorney by Gov. Rick Perry in 2013 and was later elected to the office,
described the investigation on Monday as “lengthy and thorough,” and
said it involved her office, the Houston police and the Texas Rangers.
She said the grand jury reviewed the joint inquiry for more than two
months.

This month in federal court in San Francisco, Planned Parenthood sued
the center, Mr. Daleiden and other abortion opponents involved in the
videos. The suit accused them of engaging in a three-year criminal
enterprise to target the group.

“These people broke the law to
spread malicious lies about Planned Parenthood in order to advance their
extreme anti-abortion political agenda,” Eric Ferrero, a spokesman for
the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said Monday. “As the dust
settles and the truth comes out, it’s become totally clear that the only
people who engaged in wrongdoing are the criminals behind this fraud,
and we’re glad they’re being held accountable.”

In making the
videos, Mr. Daleiden and others have been accused of setting up a fake
company called Biomax Procurement Services, creating fake identities and
claiming to be part of a legitimate provider of fetal tissue to
researchers.

The fake IDs used by Mr. Daleiden and Ms. Merritt,
images of which were included as exhibits in court documents, resemble
California-issued licenses. Mr. Daleiden went by Robert Sarkis on his
license, and Ms. Merritt used the name Susan Sarah Tennenbaum. Warrants
were issued for each defendant with a bond amount of $10,000.

“We
know that they used fake IDs that had their real photographs but fake
names and fake addresses purported to be issued by the State of
California,” said Josh Schaffer, a Houston lawyer who represents Planned
Parenthood Gulf Coast in the Harris County criminal investigation. Mr.
Daleiden and Ms. Merritt presented those IDs to security at the Planned
Parenthood office to gain entry to the building. “They never denied that
they presented a fake ID,” Mr. Schaffer said.

Mr. Schaffer said
he believed the misdemeanor charge stemmed from laws prohibiting offers
to buy fetal tissue. He said that after the meeting with Planned
Parenthood officials in Houston in April, Mr. Daleiden sent an email to
them in June offering to buy fetal tissue for $1,600 per sample. Planned
Parenthood never responded to the offer, Mr. Schaffer said.

“It
does not surprise me that a grand jury that chose to correctly apply the
law to the evidence that was presented would return this result,” he
said. “The written charges have not been released publicly yet, so at
this point I am working on my knowledge of the investigation.”

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled
that federal regulators may encourage electricity users like schools,
hospitals and shopping centers to reduce consumption at peak times in
exchange for price breaks. The regulatory approach, known as “demand
response,” lowers costs for consumers and lessens the risk of system
failures that can cause blackouts.

“That practice arose because
wholesale market operators can sometimes — say, on a muggy August day —
offer electricity both more cheaply and more reliably by paying users to
dial down their consumption than by paying power plants to ramp up
their production,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the majority in the
6-to-2 decision.

Environmental groups welcomed the ruling.
“Demand response programs make energy cheaper, ensure the reliability of
the grid, and protect our air and water from fossil fuel pollution,”
Casey Roberts, a lawyer with the Sierra Club, said in a statement.Demand
response cuts into the profits of companies that own power plants,
which lose money when price spikes are avoided. Business groups and
their supporters said the majority had ignored legal principles that
should have constrained the regulator, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

“The Supreme Court
sends a clear message by ruling in favor of FERC’s power demand rule:
Energy politics are a game that ignores both the rule of law and states’
constitutional authority,” Myron Ebell, director of the Center for
Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a
libertarian group, said in a statement.

The main legal question
in the case was whether the commission had overstepped its authority. It
oversees wholesale transactions under the Federal Power Act, but the
states regulate retail transactions.

Trade groups representing
utilities and power suppliers challenged the demand-response regulation,
saying it operated at the retail level and so was beyond the reach of
federal power.

“It
is a fact of economic life that the wholesale and retail markets in
electricity, as in every other known product, are not hermetically
sealed from each other,” she wrote. “To the contrary, transactions that
occur on the wholesale market have natural consequences at the retail
level. And so too, of necessity, will FERC’s regulation of those
wholesale matters.”

Justice Kagan
rejected a second argument from the challengers: that even if the
commission had the authority to issue the regulation, it had acted
arbitrarily in adopting it.

“The commission, not this or any
other court, regulates electricity rates,” she wrote. “The disputed
question here involves both technical understanding and policy judgment.
The commission addressed that issue seriously and carefully, providing
reasons in support of its position and responding to the principal
alternative advanced.”

“It is not our job to render that
judgment, on which reasonable minds can differ,” Justice Kagan went on.
“Our important but limited role is to ensure that the commission engaged
in reasoned decision-making — that it weighed competing views, selected
a compensation formula with adequate support in the record, and
intelligibly explained the reasons for making that choice.”

Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, dissented. He said that Justice Kagan’s analysis had things backward.

“While
the majority would find every sale of electric energy to be within
FERC’s authority to regulate unless the transaction is demonstrably a
retail sale,” Justice Scalia wrote, “the statute actually excludes from
FERC’s jurisdiction all sales of electric energy except those that are
demonstrably sales at wholesale.” That meant, he said, that the
commission had exceeded its statutory authority.

Monday’s ruling overturned a 2014 decision from a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

“Because
FERC’s rule entails direct regulation of the retail market — a matter
exclusively within state control — it exceeds the commission’s
authority,” Judge Janice Rogers Brown wrote for the majority.

In
dissent, Judge Harry T. Edwards said that the governing statute was
ambiguous and that the commission’s understanding of the scope of its
authority deserved deference.

Neither side adopted that ground on
Monday. Both Justice Kagan and Justice Scalia said the statute was
clear rather than ambiguous. But they disagreed about what it clearly
said.

Just before Christmas, Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, sent the White House a box of holiday gifts with a pointed political message. Inside were items (body lotion, halvah, olive oil) produced in Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Or rather, as Mr. Dermer put it in an accompanying letter, in Judea and
Samaria — the term used by religious nationalists who see the
settlements as no less a part of Israel than the Galilee or Tel Aviv.

From a biblical perspective, this view may be tenable. From a legal and moral perspective, it is not. As documented in a new report by Human Rights Watch,
Israel’s occupation has grown into a lucrative business, exploited by
companies as part of a system that is unlawful and abusive.

Like
the settlers, these enterprises receive benefits from the Israeli
government — preferential access to land and water, low rents — that
make the occupied territories an alluring destination. It is another
story for Palestinians,
who are routinely denied permits to open their own businesses, cut off
from their land and hemmed in by restrictions that, according to the
World Bank, cost the Palestinian economy $3.4 billion a year.

All
of these businesses are operating on illegally occupied land. A
significant amount of land, it turns out. There are roughly 1,000
factories in the chain of Israeli-administered “industrial zones” strung
across the West Bank. The geographic footprint of these commercial
enterprises, together with shopping centers and agricultural projects,
exceeds the built-up areas of settler housing.

Some Israeli officials have argued
that Palestinians benefit by working in settlement businesses,
producing what one factory owner calls “goods of peace.” But many work
in settlements only because Israel’s stifling of the Palestinian economy
has deprived them of alternatives. Because the government rarely
conducts labor inspections, Palestinian workers often earn less than the
Israeli minimum wage. If workers complain, employers sometimes
retaliate by fabricating a “security incident” that will deprive
Palestinians of their work permits, according to the H.R.W. report.

To
view goods made under these conditions as no different than products
made within Israel requires going blind to such indignities.
Unfortunately, that is exactly what new legislation that will soon land
on President Obama’s desk would require the United States government to
do. Under a provision of a larger piece of legislation,
popularly known as the Customs Bill, that has been approved by the
House and is expected to soon pass the Senate, American officials will
be obligated to treat the settlements as part of Israel in future trade
negotiations.

The ostensible reason this provision was added to a
bill on international trade is to combat the Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions movement, a grass-roots campaign that seeks to pressure Israel
to change its policies toward the Palestinians. But under existing law,
Washington already forbids American companies to cooperate with
state-led boycotts of Israel. Under the guise of an antiboycott
provision, the Customs Bill extends similar protections to
“Israeli-controlled territories” — meaning settlements. For American
trade negotiators, the industrial zones dotting the occupied territories
would have the same status as the high-tech industry in Tel Aviv, just
as settler zealots insist.

This potential, and largely unnoticed,
shift in American policy comes just as frustration with the stalled
peace process and Israel’s deepening grip on the occupied territories is
leading to more targeted pressure on Israel’s settlements. This month,
the pension board of the United Methodist Church decided
that five Israeli banks that fund construction in the settlements are
ineligible for its investment. In November, the European Union, Israel’s
largest trading partner, declared that products made in the occupied
territories should be labeled separately from Israeli goods.

As
the H.R.W. report makes clear, these steps are consistent with
international law. Since all companies that do business in or with
settlements inevitably contribute to human rights violations, they
should stop. And since no country recognizes Israeli sovereignty over
the occupied territories, all of Israel’s trading partners should insist
that the label “Made in Israel” be removed from products from the
settlements.

The Palestinian Authority has described separate
labeling of settlement goods as a useful step. (The authority supports
boycotting these goods.) Not surprisingly, the government of Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu disagrees. In the letter Mr. Dermer sent to
the recipients of his holiday gifts, he claimed that the European
Union’s push to differentiate settlement products casts Israel as a
“pariah state.” He neglected to mention the petition
signed by over 550 prominent Israelis that welcomed the union’s
decision and called on other nations to follow suit. Among the
signatories was Avishai Margalit, a former recipient of the Israel Prize
in philosophy, and Avraham Burg, a former speaker of the Israeli
Knesset.

The Obama administration has made it clear that it does
not accept the conflation of the settlements and Israel. When the
Customs Bill reaches his desk, Mr. Obama may take the rare step of
issuing a signing statement objecting to its pro-settlement language.
But if this provision becomes law, it will be a major victory for the
Israeli right, albeit one that it may come to regret. The more the line
between Israel and the occupied territories is blurred, the more likely
the rest of the world will be to question the legitimacy of not just the
settlements but Israel itself. In the long run, this will not prevent
Israel from being depicted as a pariah state, but instead will provide
powerful ammunition to those who see it as such.

Eyal Press is the author of “Beautiful Souls: The Courage and Conscience of Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times.”

CAIRO
— After the security forces raided the home of Islam Khalil, a
26-year-old salesman, last summer, he seemed to vanish without a trace.

Mr. Khalil, who lives about 50 miles north of Cairo in El Santa, Egypt,
had not been formally arrested, so his family could not determine where
he was being held, or by whom. His relatives, who said he did not have
access to a lawyer, worried that he was dead.

When Mr. Khalil finally emerged, four months later, at a police station in the port city of Alexandria, Egypt,
he looked dirty and emaciated, according to his brother Nour, and
reported that interrogators had suspended him from his arms and his
legs, and administered electric shocks to his genitals.

“He
didn’t look like the Islam I know,” Nour Khalil recalled in a recent
interview.Mr. Khalil is one of hundreds of Egyptians who have recently
been subjected to what human rights groups call “enforced
disappearance,” a harsh tactic that has become increasingly prevalent in
Egypt as the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi widens its
crackdown on opponents, real or imagined.

Instead of being held
in the formal legal system — where tens of thousands of people have been
detained under Mr. Sisi — people like Mr. Khalil have disappeared into a
network of secretive detention centers, run by the security forces,
where they are held incommunicado, without charge or access to a lawyer,
for weeks and sometimes months, according to the rights groups.

There,
interrogators use the detainee’s isolation and lack of legal
protections to interrogate them harshly. Some have been forced to open
their Facebook pages, and other social media sites, to identify friends
and relatives. Many say they have been tortured.

The detainees are usually released within months or, like Mr. Khalil, charged with a crime — usually membership in the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood,
the accusation Mr. Sisi’s government lays against many of its
opponents. But others stay missing much longer, such as the political
activist Ashraf Shehata, who disappeared in January 2014. And some turn
up dead, their bodies dumped in morgues.

Nasser Amin, a lawyer
with the state-funded National Council on Human Rights, said the
situation was far more stark now than during the nearly three-decade
rule of President Hosni Mubarak, when human rights activists generally
could locate detainees within 24 hours and visit them within 15 days.

“This is an unprecedented catastrophe for human rights and freedoms in Egypt,” he said.

The
Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, an advocacy group based in
Cairo, said it had documented 340 cases of enforced disappearances, 11
of them involving minors, from August to November. Last summer, the
United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances
said it had referred the cases of 66 people to Mr. Sisi’s government for
urgent action.

The disappeared include members of the Muslim Brotherhood
but also civil society activists, journalists and members of the public
who unwittingly become caught in the state security dragnet. “The goal
seems to be to terrorize society, to show that anyone who dares
criticize the government will face a similar fate,” said Mohamed
Elmissiry, a researcher with Amnesty International.

Public
disquiet over disappearances has steadily grown, even though Egyptians
have become somewhat inured to daily reports of new detentions.
Television channels that are normally supportive of Mr. Sisi have aired
shows that highlight the plight of people seeking news of missing
relatives, and urged the authorities to respond sympathetically to their
pleas for help. Newspapers have started to cover the issue.

“It is a crime that cannot be forgiven,” Amr Adib, a popular chat show host, said during a broadcast in December.

Rights
activists said the numbers started to surge after Maj. Gen. Magdi
Abdel-Ghaffar, a veteran of the state security services, became interior
minister in March. The minister’s office did not respond to a request
for an interview.

But after months of flatly denying that anyone
had disappeared in Egypt, the ministry in early January said it was
investigating the cases of 101 missing people. Last week, officials
raised that tally to 130.

Lawyers and rights groups are skeptical
that the ministry inquiry will go far: The government has already
absolved itself in many of the cases under review, claiming that the
detainees had been legally arrested, had joined militant groups or had
fled Egypt illegally.

Still, some activists saw the fact that the
ministry had responded at all as a measure of growing concern about the
impunity enjoyed by the security forces under Mr. Sisi. Although many
Egyptians view their leader as a source of stability, particularly at a
time of violent turmoil in other Arab countries, well-publicized
accounts of police brutality, including extrajudicial killings, caused a
stir late last year.

Public attention was galvanized last month
by the plight of Esraa el Taweel, a disabled young photographer who
vanished for two weeks before eventually surfacing in a courthouse.
Pictures of Ms. Taweel’s tearful court appearances struck a chord, and
she was released from jail in December, although she could still face
charges.

Ms. El Taweel said that she was not physically
mistreated during her time in custody but that she “heard men screaming
and crying from torture.”

She said that security officials
pressured her to read from a prepared script, before a camera, admitting
to membership of the Muslim Brotherhood, and threatened to detain her
sisters if she did not cooperate. “I told them, ‘Have pity, they are
still young, I’ll tell you what you want,’ ” she said.

Other young people whose situations garnered less attention have received harsh treatment.

Mazen
Muhammad, 15, disappeared for five days after a raid on his family home
in Cairo in September. When he surfaced he told relatives that, in an
effort to force him to confess to being a member of the Muslim
Brotherhood, officials had raped him with a wooden stick and
administered electric shock to his genitals.

Mazen is now
awaiting trial on charges of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood. “He
does not know what belonging to a group even means,” said his mother,
Omina Marouf. “He is only a child.”

Most estimates of the
disappearances do not include similar cases from Northern Sinai, where
the military is fighting a branch of the Islamic State, also known as
ISIS or ISIL, and which is out of bounds for rights monitors. Rights
groups believe that many suspected of being militants are held at
Al-Azouly military prison in Ismailia, a secretive site that the groups
say is a center of some of the most egregious abuses.

Some
activists fear they could fall prey to the phenomenon they are
documenting. On Jan. 10, for example, the Egyptian Commission for Rights
and Freedoms said that plainclothes security agents had tried to abduct
one of its board members, Ahmed Abdullah, even though he faces no
criminal charges.

Last July security officials picked up Attef
Farrag, a businessman and a Muslim Brotherhood supporter, and his son
Yehia, who relatives say was not politically active, from their home in
Cairo. “I thought they were going to kill us all,” said his wife, wiping
away tears as she described the raid.

After months of silence,
the two men reappeared in early January, when they contacted their
family from Tora prison just outside Cairo. They now face charges of
belonging to the Islamic State, their lawyer said. Attef Farrag told the
lawyer he had been tortured.

“There is no justice,” said Mariam, Mr. Farrag’s 17-year-old daughter. “We only expect to see them in our dreams.”

The Justice Department is set to review the
department after several officers fatally shot Mario Woods, 26, who was
armed with a knife at the time of his death.

he
U.S. Department of Justice is set to open an investigation into the San
Francisco Police Department after disturbing video captured the
shooting of a young black man and, in a separate incident, some officers
reportedly shared homophobic and racist text messages.

Mario Woods, 26, was armed with a knife when he was fatally shot
by San Francisco police Dec. 2. The shooting, which was captured on
cellphone video, immediately went viral and showed several officers
firing at Woods, who appeared to have already been injured.

The
shooting sparked protests, including a march on Saturday in which
hundreds of people gathered to call for the firing of San Francisco
Police Chief Greg Suhr, the Times reports.

"This is a golden
opportunity for everyone to take a look at the San Francisco Police
Department," John Burris, the lawyer for Woods' family, told a news
conference in December. Burris added that all five officers who
reportedly fired on Woods acted like a "firing squad," the Times
reports.

In December a judged ruled that several officers who
had exchanged racist and homophobic text messages would not lose their
jobs because the Police Department waited too long to address the issue.

"The fact that San Francisco is forced to retain police
officers that demonstrated explicit racism will have ramifications for
the reputation of the department, the fair administration of justice,
and the trust of the community SFPD serves," District Attorney George
Gascón said after the ruling, the Times reports.

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14) U.S. Fortifying Europe’s East to Deter Putin"The White House plans
to pay for the additional weapons and equipment with a budget request of more
than $3.4 billion for military spending in Europe in 2017, several officials
said Monday, more than quadrupling the current budget of $789 million."

WASHINGTON — President Obama plans to substantially increase the deployment of heavy weapons, armored vehicles and other equipment to NATO countries in Central and Eastern Europe, a move that administration officials said was aimed at deterring Russia from further aggression in the region.

The
White House plans to pay for the additional weapons and equipment with a
budget request of more than $3.4 billion for military spending in
Europe in 2017, several officials said Monday, more than quadrupling the
current budget of $789 million. The weapons and equipment will be used
by American and NATO forces, ensuring that the alliance can maintain a
full armored combat brigade in the region at all times.Though Russia’s
military activity has quieted in eastern Ukraine in recent months,
Moscow continues to maintain a presence there, working with pro-Russian
local forces. Administration officials said the additional NATO forces
were calculated to send a signal to President Vladimir V. Putin that the
West remained deeply suspicious of his motives in the region.

“This
is not a response to something that happened last Tuesday,” a senior
administration official said. “This is a longer-term response to a
changed security environment in Europe. This reflects a new situation,
where Russia has become a more difficult actor.”

It is not clear
how Russia will react to the fortified military presence along NATO’s
eastern flank. Since the signing of a cease-fire agreement last year,
Mr. Putin’s government has tried to ease tensions with the West.
Officials said the Russian government was eager for the United States
and Europe to roll back economic sanctions, which suggested that it
would not escalate tensions over the new military commitments.

But
outside analysts were surprised by the magnitude of the increase in
military funding for Europe, which is part of an overall budget request
of $580 billion for the Pentagon. Mr. Obama, according to a defense
official, is also going to ask Congress for a 35 percent increase — $7
billion — to fight Islamic State militants.

Some analysts said
the increased funding and deployments would certainly rattle Russia.
Among the countries where the equipment and additional forces could be
deployed are Hungary, Romania and the Baltic countries, Pentagon officials said.

“This
is a really big deal, and the Russians are going to have a cow,” said
Evelyn N. Farkas, who until October was the Pentagon’s top policy
official on Russia and Ukraine. “It’s a huge sign of commitment to
deterring Russia, and to strengthening our alliance and our partnership
with countries like Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia.”

While the
increase in funding for Europe is significant, the administration is
proposing that the money come from a separate war-funding account that
is meant to pay for operations in the conflicts in Iraq and Syria, as
well as the continued American military presence in Afghanistan. That
means it is a one-time request, not necessarily a continuing commitment
built in to budget requests beyond 2017, officials said.

But,
Mr. Harrison added, the budget workaround may not succeed in reassuring
fretful Eastern European allies because it leaves the decision on what
do about future military spending in Europe for the next administration.

“If you want to be reassuring to our allies in Europe,” he said, “you’ve got to show you’ve got a future plan.”

Administration
officials said the new investments were not just about deterring
Russia. The weapons and equipment could also be deployed along NATO’s
southern flank, where they could help in the fight against the Islamic
State or in dealing with the influx of migrants from Syria.

“Initially,
we were focusing on reassurance,” said one of the senior officials,
who, like the others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss
internal military planning. “But while that was happening, we were
stepping back and asking how to address the changed environment in a
more programmatic and consistent way.”Still, there is no doubt the
primary target of the funding is Russia. Administration officials said
that two years after its annexation of Crimea
— an annexation that neither the United States nor its European allies
recognize — it was imperative to send Moscow a message that NATO will do
all it needs to do in order to stand behind Eastern European members
worried that they could be next.

Russia has invested heavily in
its military, transforming a cumbersome, Soviet-style army into a
lighter, more flexible force, with the ability to carry out rapid
interventions. That, combined with Mr. Putin’s willingness to use the
military to expand Russia’s influence outside its borders, necessitated a
stronger deterrent force, officials said.

“Applying this budget
to Europe fulfills promises we’ve made to NATO on the collective defense
of the alliance,” a senior defense official said Monday. “But it also
shows our commitment and resolve to individual countries to which we
will be putting a persistent rotational presence of forces to
demonstrate our resolve in their, and our, collective defenses.”

He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the budget.

The
official said the Pentagon wanted a “heel to toe” rotational troop
presence in Eastern Europe, meaning that there would always be the
equivalent of a brigade in the region. Under a 1997 agreement known as
the NATO-Russia Founding Act, both sides pledged not to station large
numbers of troops along their respective borders.

Administration
officials said they were confident that the new deployments would not
be seen as breaching that agreement. In any event, Poland and the Baltic
States argue that Russia’s incursion in Ukraine was a clear violation
of the act, and that NATO should no longer abide by it.

Gen.
Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was in
Brussels two weeks ago at a NATO defense meeting, where Eastern European
countries again expressed concerns about Russia. In particular,
representatives from the Baltic nations — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania —
have been asking for a big statement of American military support,
officials said.

“This is a message that we see what they’re
capable of, and what their political leadership is willing to do,” said
another senior administration official, in a reference to Russia.

Escalating homicide rates in Mexico are affecting the country’s average life expectancy.

According to research
published in the journal Health Affairs, the life expectancy for
Mexican men aged 15 to 50 fell by 0.6 percent from 2005 to 2010.

“In
most countries, homicides do commonly occur, particularly among young
people,” said Hiram Beltrán-Sánchez, a professor of public health at the
University of California, Los Angeles, and the lead author of the
study. “What is unusual, though, is for homicides to have such a large
impact at the national level.”

In 2005, Mexico’s murder rate was
9.5 per 100,000 people, but by 2010, that figure had more than doubled,
to 22 per 100,000. That shift coincides with the beginning of a new
national security strategy in 2006, which aimed to dismantle criminal
organizations, Dr. Beltrán-Sánchez said.

“We suspect that the
rise in homicides has to do with those policies, which we hope will be
discontinued.”As in most countries around the world, improvements in
health care, living standards and nutrition had increased life
expectancy in Mexico, which rose by four to five years per decade from
1940 to 2000. Had that pattern held, Mexican men, whose life expectancy
at birth was about 72 years in 2000, should have averaged 76 or 77 years
in 2010.

Instead, Dr. Beltrán-Sánchez and his colleagues found
that life expectancy had held steady over that time. For women during
the same period, life expectancy increased by less than a year — from
about 77 to 78 years — rather than the 5.5 years seen in past decades.

According
to Dr. Beltrán-Sánchez’s analysis, life expectancy seemed to be on the
rise from 2000 to 2005, but from 2005 to 2010, many states, especially
those at the center of the drug war, had a drastic reversal.

The
average life expectancy for men in the states of Chihuahua, Sinaloa and
Durango, for example, fell by three years over those five years.
Chihuahua averaged more than 20 deaths per 1,000 males under age 75.

The life expectancy among women in those states was also affected, falling by three to six months.

Because
of the surplus of missing-person reports in Mexico, Dr. Beltrán-Sánchez
and his colleagues consider their results a conservative estimate of
homicide’s true effect on life expectancy.

“We don’t know if
missing individuals are already dead or still alive,” Dr.
Beltrán-Sánchez said. “So what we’re finding, although dramatic, is not
as bad as it could actually be.”

Dr. Beltrán-Sánchez suspects
that even sharper trends are playing out in other nations where homicide
rates have recently shot up, including El Salvador and Honduras.

“Our
next step is to try to get our hands on data from other Central
American countries,” he said. “Getting reliable data that actually
reflect what’s going on is always the issue.”

The
Justice Department announced Monday that it will conduct a sweeping
review of the San Francisco Police Department, looking at everything
from episodes involving the use of force to officer training and stops
of civilians.

The review was requested by Edwin M. Lee, San
Francisco’s mayor, after police officers fatally shot an
African-American man, Mario Woods, 26, on a city street on Dec. 2.
Mobile phone video of the shooting was made public, prompting protests
and calls for the police chief’s resignation.

“This will be a
very in-depth analysis,” said Noble Wray, who heads the federal office
responsible for the review. “It is a tremendous asset to law enforcement
for the Justice Department to come in and provide technical
assistance.”

San Francisco is the latest big city over the past year to have a federal review of its police department, after Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Milwaukee.The
inquiries into the departments were prompted in part by the deaths of
African-Americans at the hands of police officers, and by the release of
cellphone videos recorded by bystanders that called into question the
circumstances and frequency in which police officers shoot people.

Because
San Francisco sought the federal review, following the recommendations
of the Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing
Services will be voluntary.

But if San Francisco fails to make
changes quickly enough, the Justice Department could sue to force an
overhaul, as it has done in nearly two dozen cities in recent years.

Mobile phone videos
of Mr. Woods’s shooting were disseminated online; some of the footage
was taken by people in a nearby city bus. The videos show Mr. Woods
surrounded by several police officers who have their guns drawn and
aimed at him. The police said Mr. Woods had a knife.

Mr. Woods, who is initially seen standing with his back to a wall, appears to be agitated and is gesturing with his arms.

As
Mr. Woods starts to walk away, his arms at his sides, a police officer
is seen stepping into his path and firing his weapon. At least 15 shots
were fired by at least five officers, the police said.

The police
said that Mr. Woods was being investigated in connection with a
nonfatal stabbing earlier in the day, and that the officers were trying
to prevent him from harming others. The department said that the
officers had used pepper spray and fired bean bag rounds to try to
disarm Mr. Woods, but that they could not get him to drop the knife.

The
shooting led to numerous protests and calls for the firing of Greg
Suhr, San Francisco’s police chief, who has said his officers should be
equipped with Tasers to prevent similar shootings.

Chief Suhr
announced his own changes in the weeks after the shootings, including a
directive that officers file use-of-force reports after they point their
gun at someone — a requirement that has long been standard in other
departments.

The chief also said officers’ training is now more
focused on ways to de-escalate potentially fatal encounters, and less on
using deadly force.

Mr. Woods’s family has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city.

The
federal review announced on Monday will include interviewing members of
the city’s shrinking African-American population, which has long
complained that police officers have mistreated them, including
frequently using excessive force and making arrests in minority
neighborhoods for small amounts of marijuana that would be ignored
elsewhere in the city.

The review will take 18 to 24 months, the Justice Department said.

The
shooting of Mr. Woods occurred several months after more than a dozen
San Francisco police officers were found to have exchanged text messages that discussed lynching African-Americans, and that disparaged gays, Mexicans, Filipinos and others.

Chief
Suhr sought to fire some of the officers involved, but in December a
Superior Court judge ruled that the department had illegally tried to
discipline the officers after the expiration of a one-year statute of
limitations.

A review of some 3,000 cases handled by the officers
who sent and received the text messages is continuing, to determine if
the arrests or prosecutions were tainted by the officers’ beliefs.

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17) At Berkeley, a New Digital Privacy Protest
“privacy perishes in the absence of
security.”

Under a program initiated by Ms. Napolitano, the former secretary of Homeland Security
in the Obama administration, the university system began installing
hardware and software in its data centers that would monitor patterns of
digital traffic, like what websites are being visited by faculty and
students, or telltale signs of cyber intruders. The program, which was
begun with little notice or consultation, soon rankled a group of
professors at one campus, Berkeley, which has a deep-seated ethos of
academic freedom as the cradle of the free speech movement in the
1960s.In recent days, the professors have begun speaking out publicly
about the issue. “My primary concern is monitoring the private
information of students and faculty in secret,” said Eric Brewer, a
professor of computer science at U.C. Berkeley. “I’m sure there’s good
intent. But I can’t see a good reason for doing it.”

The
resistance from Mr. Brewer and other professors at Berkeley, which is
now becoming a public debate with the university system’s
administrators, raises the issue of how to define academic freedom in
the age of online attacks. While some of the professors criticize the
monitoring program as one that invades their privacy, the University of
California has responded that “privacy perishes in the absence of
security.”

It’s part of the larger challenge that fast-moving
technology poses for social values. Every day, corporations, government
agencies and universities must balance the need for computer security
with the expected right to privacy of the people who use their networks.
In different settings, there are different rules, expectations and
levels of threat.

“We’re really just starting to sort out the
risks and rules for digital security and data collection and use,” said
Elana Zeide, a privacy expert at New York University’s Information Law
Institute.

The Berkeley dispute stands out because of the place
and personalities involved. U.C. Berkeley is not only a leading producer
of computer science talent, but also a champion of the free speech
movement, so any surveillance is regarded as particularly jarring. For
her part, Ms. Napolitano, who joined the California university system in
2013, is no stranger to computer security policy, having served four
years as the nation’s Homeland Security chief.

The faculty group
of 11 professors critical of the monitoring program said the university
system enacted the program largely in private, with little transparency
about what data is being collected. The monitoring could compromise and
constrain academic freedom to research topics that some find
objectionable, among other repercussions, they said. In a formal meeting
with the University of California’s chief information officer in
December, the professors asked for the program to be halted.

On
Jan. 19, Ms. Napolitano’s staff responded in a five-page reply declining
to do so; the letter was emailed last Friday to the entire Berkeley
faculty and others. The University of California defended the security
initiative as a measured step under the circumstances, and added that
“for cybersecurity purposes, a risk to what appears to be an isolated
system at only one location may in some circumstances create risk across
locations or units.”

The university said Ms. Napolitano was not
available for an interview. Steve Montiel, press secretary for the
president’s office, said he was not aware of any complaints from other
campuses about the monitoring program.

The roots of the dispute
stretch back to the attack disclosed last July at the UCLA Health
System, which potentially put the private information of 4.5 million
patients at risk. In an interview on Monday, Tom Andriola, chief
information officer of the University of California system, said after
the medical center attack the system administrators had to “move
swiftly” to insure against similar breaches.

Some faculty
members, he acknowledged, may have understandably felt there was too
little consultation. But Mr. Andriola said that “moving forward the
faculty will be deeply involved.”

Last Oct. 27, the president’s
office issued a short statement describing the new data-tracking
program, called the Coordinated Monitoring and Threat Response
Initiative. The program’s hardware and software are being supplied and
run by an outside contractor, Fidelis Cybersecurity. The president’s
office has set up a Cyber-Risk Governance Committee to oversee programs
like the data center monitoring, which includes a Berkeley
representative, though not a tenured faculty member.

The faculty
members learned about the monitoring program from people who knew it was
being put in place, but who asked not to be identified because they
were not authorized to disclose the information. Once alerted, the
faculty group became concerned.

Just what data is being collected
and stored in the monitoring program is unclear. The president’s office
has not explained the data collection and data use practices of the
program, the Berkeley professors said.

“The issue here is the
lack of transparency and the lack of shared governance,” said Greg
Niemeyer, director of the Berkeley Center for New Media.

Lawsuits
stemming from the U.C.L.A. breach last summer prevent the president’s
office from disclosing details of the monitoring program, according to
Rachael Nava, chief operating officer of University of California
system, who signed the Jan. 19 letter. In the letter, she said the legal
constraint was “regrettable” because she could not share additional
information that “might correct some of these misimpressions.”

Mr.
Andriola emphasized that the program monitored network traffic rather
than mining the contents of email messages, for example. “This is not
spyware,” he said.

The standard practice at Berkeley, the
professors said, had been to immediately delete the so-called log files
that show the websites a person had visited or the origin and
destination of email traffic. The exception, they said, was if a pattern
of network use signaled the suspicion of data theft or a hacker attack.
So in the past, they said, the monitoring in Berkeley data centers was
light-touch, and targeted.

The worry, Mr. Niemeyer said, is that
if network traffic logs are stored, they could be subject to subpoena.
An example, he said, might be if a foreign student from China or some
other autocratic nation is visiting the websites of dissidents or
emailing them.

“Before, we could just say that we just don’t have
the records,” Mr. Niemeyer said. “Now, it’s not clear we wouldn’t or
the third-party company wouldn’t. That is the kind of scenario that is
not unlikely.”

Other examples, he said, might be constraints on
academic freedom to research topics that some object to — say,
pornography or Satan worship. Such inquiries, in theory, could become
the target of congressional investigations into the use of taxpayers’
money that supports a major public university like Berkeley.

In
December, the Berkeley faculty group met with Mr. Andriola to voice
their concerns and call for a stop to the monitoring program. In the
Jan. 19 letter from Ms. Nava, she stressed the “seriousness of the
threat.” The digital attacks can sometimes jump from one network to
another, she said.

The Berkeley professors remain unpersuaded.
Corporations often monitor the online behavior of their employees, but
American universities have a different tradition.

“It’s a pretty
settled point that universities go out of their way not to monitor
students, faculty and staff,” said Jeffrey MacKie-Mason, the university
librarian at Berkeley. “Yes, sometimes security concerns trump privacy.
But it’s something we should have an informed discussion about.”

Mr.
Andriola said he welcomed a dialogue with the university faculty as a
whole. “This is not a technology issue,” he said. “It is about how to
strike a balance between being a very open university while still
protecting the assets of the university from nefarious actors.”